FOX Sports 1’s coverage of the 1-1 draw between Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea on Tuesday was viewed by an average audience of 501,000 people, making it FS1’s most-watched Round of 16 match ever, and the fourth most-watched Champions League match on FOX Sports overall.
The game posted a +27% rise over Manchester City-Barcelona on the same match day in 2014 (395,000). Wednesday’s Round of 16 match featuring last year’s champions Real Madrid and Schalke netted 461,000 viewers, making it the fifth most-watched UEFA Champions League match in FOX Sports 1 history.
While FOX’s 501,000 number for PSG-Chelsea is impressive by FOX Sports’ standards, it failed to beat the 502,000 number for NBCSN’s coverage of the Tottenham-Arsenal derby last weekend on Saturday, February 7th. That game kicked off at 7:45am ET/4:45am PT.
Combined, the FA Cup and UEFA Champions League live match average in the first two months of 2015 (12/29/14-2/18/15 vs. 12/30/13-2/19/14) is up 23% vs. year ago (232,000 vs. 188,000). Individually, the FA Cup is up 22% (194,000 vs. 159,000) for the same date span, while the UEFA Champions League is up 22% (481,000 vs. 395,000)
Monday’s live coverage of Preston-Manchester United in their FA Cup 5th Round match on FOX Sports 1 drew 267,000 viewers, up 57% increase over the lone FA Cup 5th Round match on FOX Sports 1 last year between Everton and Swansea City (170,000).
The TV schedules for FA Cup and Champions League games (involving Premier League teams) has been updated. View the latest schedule.
