Sports
US Men’s Soccer Debut Game An TNT Draws 416,000 Viewers
NEW YORK – The United States men’s soccer team’s first English-language television broadcast under its new media contract was seen by 416,000 viewers on TNT.
According to Nielsen, last Saturday’s 0-0 exhibition draw against Colombia, which began at 7:37 p.m. EST, was watched by 540,000 in its Spanish-language broadcast on Telemundo, for a total audience of 956,000. According to NBC, an additional 33,000 people watched the Spanish telecast on Peacock, bringing the Spanish audience to 573,000 and the overall audience to 989,000.
On January 25, the first men’s game under the contract was a 2-1 friendly loss to Serbia.
It began at 10:07 p.m. EST and was broadcast with English commentary on HBO Max, which did not provide viewer statistics. 76,000 people saw this soccer match on Telemundo and 25,000 on Telexitos, which are Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal divisions, for a total of 101,000 people.
Last month, the United States Soccer Federation began eight-year broadcast agreements with Warner Bros. Discovery Sports for English and Telemundo for Spanish-language rights.
Soccer Matches Bring In A Lot Of Viewers Around The Word
From 2014 to last year, ESPN and Fox shared the USSF’s English-language rights, while TelevisaUnivision held the Spanish-language rights.
While the United States four World Cup matches on Fox averaged 12.2 million viewers, their 27 games on rated English-language networks from the beginning of 2020 to last fall averaged 668,000, according to Nielsen.
According to Nielsen, the United States team averaged 2.45 million viewers on Telemundo during the World Cup, doubling its 1.02 million average for 40 matches on Spanish-language networks in the three years leading up to the tournament.
The first two games of the United States women’s national team under the new contracts were broadcast in English on HBO Max. Both games were exhibitions in New Zealand soccer, beginning at 10 p.m. EST, with a 4-0 victory on January 17 and a 5-0 victory three days later. On Universo, 26,000 people watched the match on January 17. The game on January 22 was seen by 33,000 people on Universo and 22,000 on Telexitos, for a total of 55,000 people.
SOURCE – (AP)
