Yesterday’s airing of FC Barcelona’s 2-0 win over defending champ Manchester United averaged 1.43 million viewers (and a 1.1 rating/1.07 million homes) for ESPN making it the most-watched UEFA soccer game in the history of U.S. Cable. The previous record was the 2008 final on ESPN2 that averaged 1.09 million viewers.
Yesterday’s match was also ESPN Deportes’ second most-watched telecast ever, drawing a 9.9 Hispanic coverage ratings and 474,000 Hispanic homes. The most-watched ESPN Deportes telecast was the Euro 2008 Final where Spain beat Germany that drew a 10.1 Hispanic coverage rating.
More info at Multichannel News.
Sadly for the WWL, it was also their last UEFA match. Fox Soccer Channel/FSN/FX and Setanta have secured the rights.
The UEFA Final better be on FSN or FX then, because nobody has FSC or Setanta. Soccer’s struggling enough to find footing in America, now make it hard to find and it may disappear off the cultural map completely. Ask hockey about that (and don’t give me that NHL Playoff ratings are up this year on Versus, they’d be substantially higher if ESPN had a chance to market that Ovechkin/Crosby series.)
Next Year the final will be on FX and from now on the final will be on Saturday, and that should help a lot in getting viewers in the US.
So ESPN won’t be broadcasting any more soccer games? What about the World Cup? I am confused.
Ella, everything I know about Soccer could probably fit on the head of a pin with much room to spare, but my understanding is it’s only the UEFA (Union of European Football Association) league that is moving off of ESPN after yesterday’s final, but ESPN still has the rights to the World Cup through 2014.
Wow, not bad at all!
Only the Champion’s League is moving to FSC. The World Cup and U.S. National Team games will still be on ESPN. I’m not sure about the UEFA Cup/Europa League, but I think that’s still ESPN as well.
Thanks for the clarification, Jason!
Robert, got the infor earlier from you. One correction needs to be made in that article. In 2008, the game was on ESPN not ESPN2. Thanks to Robert, i found out that ESPN Deportes had an additional 450K households. So, in reality, we had about 1.8-1.9 million viewers watching the game live on ESPN and ESPN Deportes.
For those Soccer fans, ESPN will air all the Confederation Cup games starting in June 14-28 on ESPN/ESPN2 HD from South Africa. This is the tournament before the 2010 World Cup. You will have Italy, Brazi, Spain, USA, Eqypt, South Africa, and 2 other nations particapting in this event leading to the 2010 World Cup.
After the Confederation Cup in June, we will have the world Soccer challenge showing all the games on ESPN/ESPN2 HD held in many US cities between top European Clubs, and even some MLS teams.
On June 3 and 6th, You can watch the US national team World Cup qualifying games live on ESPN.
I really do believe ESPN will get the EPL rights in the US.
Here is ESPN’s Soccer Portfolio:
World Cup 2010 & 2014
Men World Cup qualifying games for 2010 and 2014 World Cups
Confederation Cup JUNE 2009 and 2013
Women’s World Cup 2011 and 2015
MLS Games
World Soccer Challenge this JULY in the US (between many top European clubs)
*Euro 2012 (i pretty much sure ESPN will try to get the rights for this tournament once again since the ratings were very high for the EURO 2008)
* EPL Rights could be snatched by ESPN in the US from Fox Soccer channel starting for 2010-2011 season.
Thanks for all the info guys! My brothers are huge soccer fans and would be severely disappointed if they couldn’t watch the World Cup games next year. In fact, they would be devastated.
And it’s good that at least the UEFA final will be on FX. I didn’t even know Fox had a Soccer Channel (I assume that’s something you have to get from satellite?). I hope EURO 2012 comes back to ESPN as well.
Ella i have time warner and i have fox soccer channel so you dont need satellite you just need the right cable provider.
I also think the move to fox is goodfor soccer in the US. as its sounds like as long as you have FSC FSN and FX you will be able to watch many more games live. ESPN only showed 2 live games a week. Plus FSC needs the Champions league more than ESpn so it will be that networks crown jewel so it should lead to much better coverage. plus fox actually employs people who know soccer. We wont have to listen to Alexi lalas rob stone or Dave obrien again. now if only fox could get world cup rights
“they’d be substantially higher if ESPN had a chance to market that Ovechkin/Crosby series”
The NHL’s conference finals had their highest ratings since 1998. And the quarterfinal round was the highest rated since 1997. From a NY Times blog. The fallacy that ESPN improves ratings is ridiculous. The NBA ratings hit an all-time low just three or four years under ESPN/ABC’s watch…it’s all about the matchups and the players. ESPN’s pull is greatly exaggerated.
Can any one tell me how the MLS is doing, both in rating and buzz/media attention? From what I know, the MLS did very poorly up until several years ago.
I can’t understand why Soccer (as you call it) hasn’t been able to take off in the US. What happens to all the people who played Soccer when they were kids? Do they automatically forget about it when they go to high school?
How does Hockey, a sport that only some people from the north east and people with former USSR background care about, is more popular than Soccer
Actually, Soccer get’s better rating than NHL. MLS games pretty much get the same rating as regular NHL games get. But once, you get to major tournaments, Soccer outdraws NHL by big huge margins. Case in point, look at the ratings for the World Cup, Euro 2008, and UEFA Champions League Final. With UEFA Champions League final, you had 2 million people watching it on TV during the afternoon is simply amazing. Here is the official press release from ESPN.
http://espnmediazone.com/press_releases/latestreleases.html
ESPN also reported record traffic to their digital platforms. They had about 2.5 million visitors to ESPNDeportes.com and ESPNSoccernet. com during the match day. So, you could say about 4 million people watching it on TV and online. You are still missing the count on those watching it at pubs and local sports bars, and hotels.
UEFA Champions League Final will be on Saturday afternoon going forward of Fox Soccer Channel. Imagine if the Final was on primetime or Saturday? ESPN ratings would have been much higher.
NHL playoffs and final do better than MLS, but not during regular season. MLS ratings will improve once MLS increases the salaries and being able to attract some popular players and retain good talent.
We need to stop saying that Soccer is not mainstream in the US. It is mainstream and it will even be bigger. ESPN/ABC will hype next year World Cup. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the 2010 World Cup Final on ABCHD/UNIVISIONHD getting over 20 million on a Sunday afternoon.
Fox Soccer Channel is available in the Sport Package through most cable providers including AT&T and Comcast. It’s only 5 or 10 dollars per month and you can see most of the English Premiership games and the Italian league as well. They do a great job covering soccer news as well.
They recently started tracking their ratings and they do well considering their distribution, they average 0.5 rating -which is better than most MSNBC programs even though they are available in many more households as part of basic cable-