This past week saw eight soccer matches break 1 million viewers on television in the United States. It all started last Thursday evening with the first leg of the Liga MX Liguilla Semifinal between Pumas and Club América, which averaged 1.8 million viewers across Univision’s networks and tied with the reverse fixture three days later to close out the series and see Club América off to the Finals. The Liga MX Semifinals also saw a third match break a million as the second leg of the Cruz Azul/Monterrey series averaged 1.5 million viewers.

The MLS Cup Final between Atlanta United and Portland Timbers was the most-watched MLS Cup final since the inaugural edition on ABC in 1997. This year’s edition brought in 1.563 million viewers to FOX’s broadcast with 193,000 additional people watching on UniMás. This is even more impressive when you realize that the MLS Cup was in direct competition with the 2nd leg of the Liga MX Semifinal match between Cruz Azul and Monterrey (mentioned above).

Premier League numbers on NBC appear to be on the rise again as three consecutive weeks of growth culminated with the 1.1 million viewers for Saturday afternoon’s match between Chelsea and Manchester City. It was NBC’s first match to draw more than a million viewers in nearly three months with the last being the August 18 London Derby between Chelsea and Arsenal.

Telemundo and Universo’s coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Draw averaged 166,000 viewers, outperforming FS2’s live coverage by more than 10X.

Finally, the much-hyped Copa Libertadores Final reached its exciting conclusion on Sunday before a combined US Spanish-language audience of 1.15 million viewers shared between FOX Deportes and Telemundo.

 

Rank Date Competition Teams TV1 Total
1 12/6 Liga MX Apertura Liguilla Pumas / Club América Univision: 1800000 1,800,000
2 12/9 Liga MX Apertura Liguilla Club América / Pumas Univision: 1800000 1,800,000
3 12/8 MLS Cup Atlanta United / Portland Timbers FOX: 1563000 / UniMás: 193000 1,756,000
4 12/8 Liga MX Apertura Liguilla Cruz Azul / Monterrey Univision: 1500000 1,500,000
5 12/8 Premier League Chelsea / Man City NBC: 1106000 1,106,000
6 12/9 Copa Libertadores Final River Plate / Boca Juniors FOXD: 519000 81000 1,100,000
7 12/5 Liga MX Apertura Liguilla Monterrey / Cruz Azul FOXD: 825000 825,000
8 12/8 Premier League Man Utd / Fulham NBCSN: 420000 / Universo: 26000 446,000
9 12/8 Premier League Leicester City / Spurs NBCSN: 374000 374,000
10 12/5 Premier League Man Utd / Arsenal NBCSN: 307000 / Universo: 32000 327,000
11 12/8 Premier League Bournemouth / Liverpool NBCSN: 311000 311,000
12 12/9 Premier League Newcastle / Wolves NBCSN: 267000 267,000
13 12/8 Premier League Arsenal / Huddersfield CNBC: 145000 145,000
14 12/10 Premier League Everton / Watford NBCSN: 138000 138,000
15 12/7 Serie A Juventus / Inter Milan ESPN2: 105000 105,000
16 12/7 Friendly Chivas Legends / Atlas Legends UDN: 90000 90,000
17 12/8 Bundesliga Hertha / Frankfurt UDN: 45000 45,000
18 12/8 Bundesliga Schalke / Dortmund UDN: 34000 34,000
19 12/9 Bundesliga Mainz / Hannover UDN: 25000 25,000

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

HT ShowBuzz Daily