When it comes to a common rooting interest, there’s nothing like U.S. men’s soccer team that can bring people together. The Dallas Cowboys may have been deemed “America’s Team” by NFL Films, but it appears the one squad that has united the country has been U.S. men’s soccer.
Ann Coulter and Mike Francesa notwithstanding, ratings and viewership show that in its four World Cup games this year, Team USA received record numbers. As Sports Media Watch points out, the numbers are even more impressive when you consider their games were scheduled in either in midday or late afternoon weekday timeslots, periods which are not considered ideal for large viewership.
USA-Portugal which was played late on a Sunday afternoon on the East Coast received the highest viewership on ESPN/Univsion, 24.7 million. That was followed by another 21.6 million viewers for this week’s USA-Belgium match which was played late Tuesday afternoon. And the USA’s other two games, Ghana (15.9 million) and Germany (14.2 million) also received decent numbers.
So it goes to show that people like to have national team to get behind and judging from the viewing parties in Chicago, the Dallas metroplex, New York and other cities, the U.S. men’s soccer team resonated across the country.
The only U.S. national team game that did better than USA-Portugal was the 2010 Winter Olympic US-Canada gold medal game that garnered an astounding 27.6 million viewers. And when you count the online viewership for the U.S. men’s soccer team, the total viewership comes close to U.S. men’s hockey.
As can be seen in this graph from Sports Media Watch, U.S. men’s World Cup soccer games have accounted for six of the top ten most-watched events involving U.S. national teams:
It is amazing to think that fans across the country embraced the U.S. men’s soccer team in droves this year. This is a sport that has struggled to gain traction in the sporting conscience and has been mocked by the media in countless articles. Ignoring the detractors, fans have spoken in giant numbers.
Certainly having the games played in the same hemisphere as the United States has helped. We probably won’t see the same high viewership in four years when the World Cup will be played in Russia where games could be played at 4 a.m., 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. ET, but it will be interesting to see if there will be early-morning viewing parties across the nation.
Comments are closed.