Millions watch World Cup Final
Posted Jul 13, 2010 03:37:04 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Spain’s win over the Netherlands in the World Cup final attracted a record Canadian television audience, according to CBC.
An average audience of 5.816 million tuned into CBC and its French sister station Radio-Canada on Sunday afternoon, making it the most-watched World Cup game ever in Canada, the network said Monday.
Sunday’s numbers were more than double the combined audience from the 2006 final, which was carried by CTV. Comparing the numbers is difficult however, because a new ratings system has seen sports audience figures skyrocket in recent months.
Sunday’s English audience peaked at 7.664 million just before 5 p.m. ET. The English average was 5.131 million compared to 2.132 million for the Italy-France final in 2006.
The online broadcast of Sunday’s game drew 231,649 total live streams.
On Saturday, the third-place match between Uruguay and Germany attracted an average audience of 1.894 million viewers.
South of the border, almost 25 million people in the United States watched the game, a record audience for a telecast of a soccer game in the U-S.
Overall, ESPN said coverage of all 64 World Cup matches averaged about 3.3 million viewers on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. That’s a 41% improvement from 2006, when the games averaged 2.3 million viewers.
According to Nielsen, ABC had 15.5 million viewers while Univision drew 8.8 million.
The appeal of soccer has been growing steadily in the United States for years and the 24.3 million figure is not far behind the 28.2 million that tuned into Game 7 of the NBA final between the Lakers and the Boston Celtics last month.
