2ND UPDATE, 1:40 PM: We know the winner of yesterday’s World Cup final was Germany, but it looks like ABC/ESPN and Univision scored too. Both broadcasters had their best World Cup ever this year, with ESPN/ABC up 39% in viewership over the 2010 World Cup and up 96% over the 2006 World Cup. Over the 64 games of this year’s tournament, Univision was up 34% from its total audience from 2010.
Broadcasting live on ABC on Sunday afternoon, the Germany’s 1-0 victory over Argentina in a game that went extra time was watched by 17.324 million viewers with an average rating of 9.1. That marks the most-watched men’s soccer final ever for the Disney-owned properties and the third-most-watched soccer game ever in the U.S., behind only the 18.22 million who watched USA-Portugal on ESPN on June 22 and the 17.95 million who saw Team USA win the Women’s World Cup final in 1999 over China. Sunday’s final was the most-watched World Cup championship game in U.S. Spanish-language TV history with an average total audience of 9.2 million (5.0 million adults 18-49), with the broadcaster out-delivering ABC in the big Miami and LA markets.
1st UPDATE, 7:40 AM: Sunday’s nailbiter final between Germany and Argentina was a World Cup ratings record for ABC/ESPN . The 1-0 victory that brought Germany its fourth World Cup got a 9.7 rating in metered market results. That’s the best of any game of this year’s tournament and the third best that any World Cup game ever has done Stateside. Only the 1994 final between Brazil and Italy with its 12.8 and the Round of 16 match between the USA and Brazil (10.4) that same year have ever done better than yesterday afternoon’s game, which was broadcast on ABC. The 1994 World Cup was held in the United States, by the way. Coverage for yesterday’s game played in Rio peaked in the extra time of the game around 2:15 – 2:30 PM PT with a 14.2 rating. The top local market for ABC/ESPN was Washington D.C. which had a 15.4 metered market result. We’ll update with more ratings from yesterday’s match when we get them. Overall 64 games of the 2014 World Cup, ESPN, ESPN 2 and ABC had a 3.1 metered market average rating result – a 29% increase over the last World Cup four years ago from South Africa.
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PREVIOUS, 1:50 AM: On Sunday, Germany became the first European team to ever win a World Cup on South American soil. In another record-breaking turn, the match scored the biggest ever TV audience in Germany. Overnight ratings have 34.65M tuning into ARD for the final. That beat the 32.57M average of the previous record holder, last Tuesday’s face-off with Brazil. The audience share, however, was slightly lower on Sunday with 86.3% versus Tuesday’s 87.8%. Overnight Stateside ratings will be in from ABC and Univision later in the day.
Facebook has also weighed in with record numbers this morning. The
social networking site says that 88M people had more than 280M interactions related to the final. That includes 10.5M people in the U.S., 10M in Brazil, more than 7M in Argentina and 5M in Germany. The match broke the record for the highest level of Facebook conversation for any single sporting event in history. The previous champ was Super Bowl XLVII on Feb 3, 2013 with 245M interactions.
Elsewhere on social media, the final set a new Twitter record with 618,725 tweets per minute when the final buzzer sounded. In total, 32.1M tweets were sent during the match. That was the 2nd biggest score for the microblog after it exploded last Tuesday with 35.6M during the Germany-Brazil game which became the most-discussed sporting event in its history.
As for other European TV ratings, 13.35M in France watched their neighbors across the Rhine proceed to victory off of Mario Götze’s exquisite 113th-minute goal. That was worth 61% of the market for TF1, but fell below the 2010 final between Spain and the Netherlands (14.1M) and the 2006 final that saw France lose to Italy (22.14M). In Spain, an average 10.6M tuned in to Telecinco with a peak of 12.7M and a 67.7 share at the end of play. In the UK, a peak audience of 20.64M watched the final across BBC One and ITV. The BBC had a high of 16.72M viewers with a 61.4 share at 10:30 PM local. ITV netted a high of 3.96M and a 13.8 share at 9:45 PM. BBC One averaged 12.09M and a 50.3 share, ITV had an average 2.86M for a 12.1 share throughout the match. In 2010, the BBC’s final coverage peaked with 17.9M, ITV hit 3.8M, both during extra time.




A study of French audiences has shown that if you take into account group viewings (giant screens, bars, restaurants, friends or family gatherings) and not just the number of TV sets, the viewership for games involving the national team can be increased by 50%!!! Which means that the last game of “Les Bleus” which scored more than 18M viewers (TF1 + Bein) was in fact seen by almost 27M people within the country.
If that were also the case in Germany, that could bring their numbers for the final game to 50M+ viewers.
The same or similar should be able to be applied to the out-of-home viewing in the US.
the victory of germeny over Argentina was more than expected by reavilig the strong team effort of Germeny and the dependency of Argentina on L.Messi.
Germeny harvested their effort!!
It just felt like time stood still yesterday here(NYC). People are slowly, or rapidly (depending on your own view) are watching and enjoying this beautiful sport. Bravo, yes, double bravo to Univision for providing exceptional coverage of these games. You have set a new standard on how these games should be covered in the future!
If the U.S. had been playing, the World Cup championship game would have drawn Super Bowl-type numbers here in the ‘States, and likely would have shattered the record for the most-watched worldwide television event ever.
Even as it is, it probably will rank alongside the last two Super Bowls as the most-watched global television event ever.
The global World Cup Final audience dwarfs that of the Super Bowl. It’s tough to measure global figures but it gets well over 200m verifiable viewers worldwide, and is probably closer to 500m (FIFA claim ~1bn but take that with a massive pinch of salt).
I do not believe any company who claims something was watched by a billion people. I know the WC is a gobal thing, but I do not believe a billion people watched it. That claims also is always thrown around for a Royal Wedding.
You’re kidding if you think the Superbowl has anything on the World Cup when it comes to global viewing. NFL is a sport with little interest outside of the USA. Sure, other countries broadcast it, especially on sports channels that need to fill their roster but that doesn’t translate into viewings.
No one outside of the USA – apart from fringe viewers – cares about NFL. If you think they do then you’re in la-la land.
I know of a picnic ground in Jersey City, Zeppelin Hall , that had at least 3 thousand viewers. Bars all over the USA probably made that several million.