The 2017/18 season of the Premier League kicked off on a Friday for the first time as Arsenal hosted Leicester, which drew 375,000 viewers on NBCSN, up 80% from last season’s opener between Hull and Leicester on CNBC. Premier League viewership peaked at 1.028 million viewers on Sunday afternoon for Manchester United’s 4-0 defeat of West Ham United. For the first week, the Premier League averaged 537,000 viewers on NBC’s networks, up 30% from last season’s opening week which saw heavy competition from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

Real Madrid and Barcelona met in the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup before an audience of 570,000 on ESPN Sunday afternoon. English language coverage of the match was down 30% from their International Champions Cup meeting two weeks prior on July 29. Spanish language numbers were not available.

Also, last week marked the first time an NWSL broadcast has drawn a larger audience than an MLS match played on the same weekend. Sunday’s match between two of MLS’s biggest franchises managed to draw just 73,000 viewers on ESPN2 while a match between the Washington Spirit and Boston Breakers drew an audience of 80,000 on Lifetime one day earlier. For MLS, the match was the least-watched since the LA Galaxy took on FC Dallas on FS1 in October 2016, and ESPN2’s lowest since the start of the current rights deal.

Here are the most-watched soccer games on US TV for August 8-13, 2017:

Average viewing audiences for soccer leagues on US TV:

Rank Date Competition Teams TV1 TV2 Total
1 8/13/17 Premier League Man Utd / West Ham NBCSN; 680000 Telemundo; 348000 1,028,000
2 8/12/17 Premier League Brighton / Man City NBC; 915000 Unvso; 75000 990,000
3 8/12/17 Liga MX Monterrey / Chivas Univision; 484000 UDN; 345000 829,000
4 8/12/17 Liga MX Necaxa / Leon Univision; 409000 UDN; 184000 593,000
5 8/13/17 Liga MX Pumas / Lobos Univision; 393000 UDN; 186000 579,000
6 8/13/17 Spanish Supercopa Barcelona / Real Madrid ESPN; 570000 —; — 570,000
7 8/12/17 Premier League Chelsea / Burnley NBCSN; 482000 Unvso; 48000 530,000
8 8/11/17 Liga MX Atlas / América —; — UDN; 525000 525,000
9 8/13/17 Premier League Newcastle / Spurs NBCSN; 408000 Unvso; 35000 443,000
10 8/11/17 Premier League Arsenal / Leicester City NBCSN; 375000 —; — 375,000
11 8/12/17 Premier League Watford / Liverpool NBCSN; 364000 —; — 364,000
12 8/8/17 UEFA Super Cup Real Madrid / Man Utd FS1; 315000 —; — 315,000
13 8/8/17 Copa MX América / Potros —; — UDN; 276000 276,000
14 8/12/17 Liga MX Cruz Azul / Toluca —; — UDN; 242000 242,000
15 8/13/17 Liga MX Santos / Veracruz —; — UDN; 182000 182,000
16 8/13/17 Ligue 1 Guingamp / PSG beIN; 62000 beIE; 118000 180,000
17 8/8/17 Copa MX Zacatepec / Tigres —; — UDN; 156000 156,000
18 8/11/17 Liga MX Puebla / Tijuana —; — UDN; 156000 156,000
19 8/9/17 Copa MX Pumas / Monterrey —; — UDN; 127000 127,000
20 8/12/17 Liga MX Pachuca / Tigres —; — Gala; 85000 85,000
21 8/9/17 Copa MX Pachuca / Querétaro —; — Gala; 84000 84,000
22 8/12/17 NWSL Spirit / Breakers Lifetime; 80000 —; — 80,000
23 8/13/17 MLS Los Angeles Galaxy / New York City ESPN2; 73000 —; — 73,000
24 8/10/17 CONCACAF League Alajuelense / Olimpia —; — UDN; 56000 56,000
25 8/10/17 CONCACAF League Árabe Unido / Central —; — UDN; 45000 45,000

Average MLS viewing audiences on US TV:

League Overall* ESPN ESPN2 FOX FS1
2017 MLS 260,620 (46) 298,941 (17) 220,000 (5) 440,750 (4) 188,000** (18)
2016 MLS 257,683 (63) 290,179 (28) 201,500 (4) 658,000 (5) 154,346 (26)
2017 NWSL 94,313 (16)        
2017 USL 19,000 (2)       *English-Only
          **One game missing

SEE MORE: Access our archives of US TV ratings for soccer.

HT ShowBuzz Daily