World Cup Shocker: Top Game Ratings Bigger Than World Series and NBA Finals
Remember when Team USA was still in the World Cup? Well, its second game — a tie versus Portugal that merely kept the country in contention for the knockout round — actually topped the deciding games of all other major American sports for the most recent season.
The only major sporting event that wasn't completely decimated by that particular World Cup match was the monstrosity that is the Super Bowl, of course.
And that's just counting the soccer viewers on ESPN — the game also aired on Univision. On the Spanish-language station, the match scored 6.5 million additional viewers.
Also read: World Cup Fever Still Contained Mostly to Coasts (Infographic)
But for these purposes, we'll treat the networks separately and focus on the self-proclaimed “Worldwide Leader in Sports.”
USA-Portugal on ESPN nabbed 18.2 million live plus same day total viewers on average. The deciding World Series Game 6 was close behind with 18 million flat, per the same metric. (In “most current” ratings, which are live plus seven days and timezone adjusted, the World Series Game 6 jumped to 19.2 million viewers.)
Game 5 of the NBA Finals, when the San Antonio Spurs clinched the series versus the Miami Heat, rounds up to 18 million viewers on ABC.
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Game 5 of the NHL Stanley Cup, when the Los Angeles Kings raised the trophy, pulled in 6 million viewers on NBC.
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The country's biggest TV event, the Super Bowl, had a record-setting 112.2 million viewers this year. Those gargantuan figures reflect not only the sport's popularity, but are a testament to the strength that is the game‘s one-and-done format.
Also read: Hollywood Erupts on Social Media Over Team USA's Crushing World Cup Elimination
In the other football, Team USA was knocked out of the 2014 World Cup on Tuesday afternoon, falling 2-1 in extra time to Belgium.
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That game initially set the top overnight ratings number for ESPN, but according to later numbers it finished second to USA-Portugal — which benefitted greatly from airing on a Sunday — in viewers.
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