USA-Thailand Women’s World Cup game nets 2.7 million on FOX

While the USA’s 13-0 win against Thailand was an emphatic one on Tuesday, the viewership on over-the-air FOX was disappointing compared to the US’s first game in the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

Viewership for USA-Thailand dropped 18% compared to the USA’s first 2015 Women’s World Cup game against Australia.

In 2015, 3.31 million viewers tuned in to watch USA-Australia on FS1 compared to 2.72 million viewers on the over-the-air FOX channel on Tuesday.

The biggest reason for the 18% drop? The kickoff time. During the 2015 Women’s World Cup held in Canada, most of the games were scheduled during the evening hours, a more favorable viewing time for Americans. The USA-Australia match in Edmonton kicked off at 7:30PM ET, while Tuesday’s USA-Thailand game kicked off at 3 pm ET.

One of the challenges that FOX Sports faces this summer is that the Women’s World Cup games will be televised live during the morning and afternoon. It makes me wonder if FOX may consider broadcasting some of the later rounds of USWNT games on tape-delay in primetime on the over-the-air FOX network to bump up the overall numbers (as well as showing the game earlier in the day live on FOX).

SEE MORE: Schedule of Women’s World Cup games on US TV and streaming

In comparison, the Spanish-language broadcast of USA-Thailand on Telemundo netted 444,000 viewers, more than doubling viewership for the USWNT’s opening match at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup (203,000 for USA-Australia on Universo).

Telemundo Deportes’ digital presentation of the Group Stage match established a new record as the most live streamed Women’s World Cup match in network history, surpassing last Friday’s France vs. South Korea opening match by almost 100%.