USA’s 5-2 victory over Japan to win the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament garnered a 15.2 overnight rating, destroying both the 8.6 overnight rating for the USA-Japan final in 2011 and blowing past the 13.3 overnight for the USA-China final in 1999.
Update 2: the match averaged a stunning 25.4 million viewers on Fox.
Update: per Fox the match peaked from 8:45-9p with an 18.3/31 rating/share. The top local markets were:
1. Kansas City: 20.6/35
2. St. Louis: 20.5/33
3. San Diego: 19.5/41
4. Denver: 19.4/36
5. Austin: 19.1/37
I’d thought the early blowout would be bad for ratings, but Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand had predicted the opposite:
My guess is that the early 4-0 lead will translate to big ratings for Fox. U.S. fans want tune into coronations. https://t.co/p5ci1ZnpJW
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) July 6, 2015
Given the record number and the late peak, looks like the John’s theory about coronations was spot on.
Overnights for 7/05/2015: #FIFAWWC #USA #JPN #FIFAWWCFinal #FWWConFOX 7:00 12.8/25 7:30 14.1/26 8:00 15.9/28 8:30 17.9/30 9:00 11.3/19
— Douglas Pucci (@SonOfTheBronx) July 6, 2015
Overnight household rating = the live+same day DVR overnight metered-market household rating from the top 56 Nielsen television markets. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) account for about 70% of the US TV-viewing population. The overnight household rating is the percentage of the households that were tuned-in in those markets