Telemundo concluded their coverage of the FIFA Confederations Cup Group Stage averaging 1 million total viewers across all 12 matches. Mexico unsurprisingly led the way as the most popular team during the group stages by averaging 2.1 million viewers per match on Telemundo and an additional 521,000 on FOX and FS1. Chile also proved to be a huge draw for Telemundo, averaging 1.17 million viewers in their first three matches. Through the group stage, Telemundo Deportes’ broadcasts are up by 85% from Univision’s coverage of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa, which was played in a similar time zone.
In the women’s game, the NWSL on Lifetime reached a new high for the season as Saturday’s match between Orlando Pride and Houston Dash drew 123,000 viewers. The league is now averaging 96,100 viewers through 10 matches on Lifetime.
Major League Soccer made its return to the FOX broadcast network this week for the Hudson River Derby immediately following Mexico’s final Confederations Cup group stage match against hosts Russia. Although FOX shed 40% of its viewer count after the conclusion of Mexico’s match, it was still good enough to rank as the second most-viewed match on the English networks and the fourth most viewed overall in 2017. Major League Soccer will feature on FOX for the final time this season on July 30 as Atlanta United host Orlando City SC.
A pleasant surprise this week was the 300,000 viewers that tuned into the US Open Cup Round of 16 game between Cincinnati and Chicago Fire, which had more viewers than the Portland-Seattle derby on Sunday night.
Here are the most-watched soccer games on US TV for June 21-28, 2017:
Average viewing audiences for soccer leagues on US TV:
Rank | Date | Competition | Teams | TV1 | TV2 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 6/24/17 | Confederations Cup | Mexico / Russia | FOX; 780000 | Telemundo; 2200000 | 2,980,000 |
2 | 6/21/17 | Confederations Cup | Mexico / New Zealand | FS1; 298000 | Unvso; 1700000 | 1,998,000 |
3 | 6/25/17 | Confederations Cup | Chile / Australia | —; — | Telemundo; 1290000 | 1,290,000 |
4 | 6/22/17 | Confederations Cup | Germany / Chile | FS1; 329000 | Telemundo; 915000 | 1,244,000 |
5 | 6/21/17 | Confederations Cup | Russia / Portugal | FS1; 176000 | Telemundo; 647000 | 823,000 |
6 | 6/25/17 | Confederations Cup | Germany / Cameroon | FOX; 646000 | Unvso; 82000 | 728,000 |
7 | 6/24/17 | MLS | New York Red Bulls / New York City | FOX; 467000 | FOXD; 51000 | 518,000 |
8 | 6/22/17 | Confederations Cup | Cameroon / Australia | —; — | Telemundo; 454000 | 454,000 |
9 | 6/28/17 | Open Cup | Cincinnati / Chicago | ESPN; 300000 | —; — | 300,000 |
10 | 6/25/17 | MLS | Portland Timbers / Seattle Sounders | ESPN2; 294000 | —; — | 294,000 |
11 | 6/23/17 | MLS | Houston Dynamo / FC Dallas | UniMás; 203000 | —; — | 203,000 |
12 | 6/24/17 | NWSL | Pride / Dash | Lifetime; 123000 | —; — | 123,000 |
13 | 6/24/17 | Confederations Cup | New Zealand / Portugal | —; — | Unvso; 67000 | 67,000 |
Average MLS viewing audiences on US TV:
League | Overall* | ESPN | ESPN2 | FOX | FS1 | Univision | UniMás |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2017 MLS | 250,484 (34) | 290,800 (11) | 256,750 (4) | 428,333 (3) | 182,571** (15) | ||
2016 MLS | 257,683 (63) | 290,179 (28) | 201,500 (4) | 658,000 (5) | 154,346 (26) | ||
2017 NWSL | 61,000 (10) | ||||||
*English-Only | |||||||
**One game missing |
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