Nearly 25 Million Americans Watched USA vs Ghana
By Brian Stern
Monday’s USA Opener approached NFL Playoff ratings numbers.
Americans love cheering for the red, white, and blue.
What is becoming very apparent is that tv ratings are climbing significantly in relation to US Soccer.
On TuesdayESPN initially announced that nearly 9 million people had watched the USA vs Ghana game on Monday night, however by noon-time that number had risen to 11.093 million. This set the record for ESPN as USA’s 2014 World Cup opener beat the previous record of 10 million viewers set in the 2010 World Cup matchup of USA vs. England.
Additionally nearly 1.4 million Americans turned on their devices to watch the game with ESPN reporting 1.4 million had also viewed the game on their WatchESPN app. The previous record was set just a few days earlier during the World Cup opener featuring host country Brazil and Croatia.
For comparison an average Monday Night Football game drew 13.8 million viewers. During the NFL Wild Card weekend this year, the numbers were much larger, at 35 million.
Univision, another over the air provider averaged 4.9 million viewers over the air. It was Univision’s most watched USA World Cup match ever.
Through their digital media stream and applications, Univision also announced it had nearly 7 million viewers on the digital side.
Including over-the-air viewers and digital applications nearly 25 million people watched USA’s World Cup Opener. Kickoff was on a Monday night, and was only a semi-primetime event with a 6 pm EST kickoff. Nearly 1/2 of the US was rushing home from work or taking off early in order to watch this game and they did so in the millions.
While this is intial overnights, it is clear America loves the World Cup.