The opening round of the 2018-19 Premier League season averaged 621,667 viewers across NBC, NBCSN, Telemundo and Universo, down 3% from 601,500 for the opening round last year. Viewership reached its peak as the round ended for the late Sunday kickoff featuring Arsenal and defending champions Manchester City with 1.024 million tuning in on NBCSN and Telemundo. For NBCSN, the match was the most-watched opening weekend cable Premier League match on record, excluding 2016 during the Rio Olympics, which featured lead-in programming and additional promotion.
Viewership for NBC’s Saturday afternoon match between newly promoted Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton was down 13% from the networks first broadcast of the 2017-18 season contested by Brighton and Manchester City.
Viewership for the 2018 Liga MX Apertura is down a massive 24% so far. After the first three rounds, the league is averaging just 419,250, a significant drop from 550,579 viewers at this same point last year. The Apertura’s highest viewership came last weekend as Club América and CF Monterrey played before 894,000 viewers on Univision. At this point last year, three match windows had averaged more than 894,000 viewers with two of them breaking the 1 million viewer mark.
The late summer slump continues for MLS on English-language television with last Sunday night’s FS1 broadcast featuring Seattle Sounders and FC Dallas drawing only 139,000 viewers to the network. Data for the preceding broadcasts on FS1 and ESPN was so low that the numbers were not made publicly available.
Here are the most-watched soccer games on US TV for August 7-12, 2018:
| Rank | Date | Competition | Teams | TV1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8/12 | Premier League | Arsenal / Man City | NBCSN: 723000 / Telemundo: 301000 | 1,024,000 |
| 2 | 8/11 | Liga MX | América / Monterrey | Univision: 894000 / —: — | 894,000 |
| 3 | 8/11 | Premier League | Wolves / Everton | NBC: 794000 / —: — | 794,000 |
| 4 | 8/11 | Liga MX | Tigres / Toluca | Univision: 672000 / —: — | 672,000 |
| 5 | 8/11 | Premier League | Huddersfield / Chelsea | NBCSN: 550000 / Unvso: 39000 | 589,000 |
| 6 | 8/12 | Liga MX | Chivas / Santos | —: — / UDN: 534000 | 534,000 |
| 7 | 8/12 | Premier League | Liverpool / West Ham | NBCSN: 382000 / Telemundo: 131000 | 513,000 |
| 8 | 8/12 | Liga MX | Tijuana / Cruz Azul | —: — / FOXD: 461000 | 461,000 |
| 9 | 8/10 | Premier League | Man Utd / Leicester City | NBCSN: 370000 / Unvso: 18000 | 388,000 |
| 10 | 8/11 | Premier League | Newcastle / Spurs | NBCSN: 274000 / Unvso: 27000 | 301,000 |
| 11 | 8/12 | Liga MX | Pumas / Pachuca | —: — / UDN: 252000 | 252,000 |
| 12 | 8/10 | Liga MX | Morelia / Necaxa | —: — / UDN: 213000 | 213,000 |
| 13 | 8/7 | Int’l Champions Cup | Real Madrid / Roma | ESPN: 194000 / ESPND: — | 194,000 |
| 14 | 8/11 | Liga MX | Lobos / Atlas | —: — / UDN: 171000 | 171,000 |
| 15 | 8/10 | Liga MX | Puebla / Veracruz | —: — / UDN: 166000 | 166,000 |
| 16 | 8/11 | Liga MX | León / Querétaro | —: — / UDN: 150000 | 150,000 |
| 17 | 8/12 | MLS | Seattle Sounders / FC Dallas | FS1: 139000 / —: — | 139,000 |
| 18 | 8/9 | CONCACAF League | Portmore United / Santos de Guápiles | —: — / UDN: 51000 | 51,000 |
| 19 | 8/9 | CONCACAF League | Real España / Tauro | —: — / UDN: 48000 | 48,000 |
