On the heels of averaging 4.5 million viewers for the USA-Sweden 2015 Women’s World Cup match on the Fox broadcast network on Friday, USA’s Tuesday night victory over Nigeria notched million viewers. The second hour of coverage went head-to-head with game 6 of the NBA Finals on ABC. The game broke multiple records, here’s the hail of bullets from Fox Sports:
– The match attracted 5.0 million viewers on FOX, making it the most-watched FIFA Women’s World Cup Group Stage match ever and the most-watched soccer match ever on the network, breaking the marks set Friday for USA-Sweden (4.5 million) by 11%, according to Nielsen.
– USA-Nigeria is the third most-watched women’s soccer match of all time, trailing only the USA-China 1999 Women’s World Cup Final (17,975,000) and the Japan-USA 2011 Women’s World Cup Final (13,458,000). The Brazil-USA 1999 Women’s World Cup Semifinal drops to fourth (4.9 million), followed by USA-Sweden 2015 Women’s World Cup Group Stage (4.5 million).
– Audiences for each U.S. Group Stage match this tournament grew, beginning with 3.3 million for USA-Australia, which was televised on FOX Sports 1, to 4.5 million for USA-Sweden and 5.0 million for USA-Nigeria. The growth from Match 1 to Match 3 is 52%.
– The audience for USA-Nigeria (5.0 million) is +285% better than the audience for the third USA Women’s World Cup Group Stage match on ESPN in 2011 (1.3 million).
– Last night’s game powered FOX to its best Tuesday night in primetime on average audience (5.5 million viewers) since airing Game 6 of the 2014 World Series (10/28/14).
– FOX had its best Tuesday night among Adults 18-49 (2.0) since 2014 World Series Game 6 (10/28/14).
– Match audience began at 1.7 million viewers at 7:43 PM ET and peaked at 6.3 million from 9:30-9:45 PM ET, opposite the NBA Finals.
– The three USA Group Stage matches on FOX (2) and FOX Sports 1 averaged 4.3 million viewers, +207% over the 1.4 million viewers the three USA Group Stage games averaged in 2011 on ESPN.
– FOX Sports’ coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015™ through Monday, plus yesterday’s USA-Nigeria match on FOX (all matches for which national figures are available), is averaging 1,044,000 viewers, up +87% vs. the 559,000 viewers averaged on ESPN and ESPN2 in 2011 during Group Stage play.
– Top 10 markets for USA-Nigeria: St. Louis (6.5); Austin (5.1); New York (4.9); Milwaukee (4.8); Washington D.C. (4.7); Kansas City (4.6); Dallas (4.5); Atlanta, Hartford and Portland, Ore. (4.4).
– Top markets for three USA matches combined: St. Louis (4.8); Washington D.C. (4.4); Milwaukee and Richmond (4.1); Baltimore and Hartford (4.0); Kansas City (3.8); Providence (3.6); Atlanta, Austin, Dayton, New York, Norfolk and Portland, Ore. (3.5).