World Cup 2014 has arrived, and ESPN has to be very encouraged with the audience for the opening match (host country Brazil versus Croatia). Yesterday the match averaged 4,040,000 total viewers (any age) and a 1.72 adult 18-49 rating. This is well above the opening match in 2010 from South Africa at 9:25 am ET (2,599,000 total viewers and 1.23 adult 18-49 rating) and is not far behind the average for 2010 matches on ESPN involving the USA team. Soccer continues to skew young, with very solid men 18-34 ratings.
Don’t forget: these ratings are only for ESPN in homes with television. This does not include any ESPN television viewing in bars, restaurants, hotels or offices or any ESPN streaming anywhere. That audience is easily another few million, and there is an additional 5 million people in the US watching the match on Univision. So the aggregated audience on all sources could be in the 12-14 million range. But just looking at television ratings alone, the World Cup is on track for a successful run on ESPN and ESPN2 and ABC.
| World Cup 2014 — U.S. Television Ratings |
Total Viewers |
Demographic Ratings |
|
|
|
ET |
|
Match |
Score |
Persons 2+ |
Adults 18-49 |
Men 18-49 |
Men 18-34 |
| 1. |
Thu |
June 12 |
4:00 pm |
ESPN |
Brazil vs Croatia |
3-1 |
4,040,000 |
1.72 |
2.43 |
2.76 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| World Cup 2010 Comparisons |
| Opening Day Matches |
|
Fri |
June 11 |
9:25 am |
ESPN |
South Africa vs Mexico |
1-1 |
2,599,000 |
1.23 |
1.92 |
2.16 |
|
Fri |
June 11 |
2:00 pm |
ESPN |
Uruguay vs France |
0-0 |
2,724,000 |
1.27 |
1.98 |
2.08 |
| ESPN Averages |
|
var |
var. |
var. |
ESPN |
All Live 2010 Matches |
2,281,000 |
1.03 |
1.55 |
1.63 |
|
var |
var. |
var. |
ESPN |
2010 USA Matches |
5,038,000 |
2.19 |
3.14 |
3.34 |
|
var |
June 11-25 |
ESPN |
Group Stage Live Matches |
2,131,000 |
0.97 |
1.47 |
1.57 |
|
var |
June 26-July 7 |
ESPN |
Knockout Stage Live Matches |
2,792,000 |
1.21 |
1.79 |
1.85
|
Note: The nightly ESPN2 WORLD CUP LIVE round-up telecast at 7PM had a 0.29 rating in 18-49s, which went to 0.42 for Men 18-49 and 0.49 for Men 18-34. The same network’s WORLD CUP PRIMETIME LIVE at 8:30PM was at 0.25/0.31/0.27
ESPN/ABC Televised Day 2 Matches (all times Eastern)
5:30AM: Mexico vs. Cameroon – ESPN2
8:30AM: Spain vs. Netherlands – ESPN
11:30AM: Chile vs. Australia – ESPN2
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