US World Cup return vs Wales viewed by 11.7 million Americans – up 5% on 2014 tournament opener

The United States’ first 1-1 draw with Wales at the World Cup was watched by 11.7 million people due to the English and Spanish-language broadcasts, five percent more than the Americans’ 2-1 victory over Ghana at the start of the season. tournament in 2014.

Monday’s game, which began at 2 p.m. EST, was seen by 8,306,000 people for Fox’s English-language broadcast and 3.4 million for the Spanish-language offerings on Telemundo, Telemundo digital and Peacock, part of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal.

Fox said the match was watched by 563,000 on streams, the network’s highest group stage since acquiring the US English language rights for the 2018 tournament. There were 1.0 million streams on Telemundo and Peacock, the most-streamed Spanish-language World Cup contest.

Brazil’s 2014 American opener, which began at 6 p.m. EDT in mid-June, was seen by 11.1 million on ESPN and 4.8 million on Univision.

That was less than 17.3 million on ABC and Univision for the Americans’ opening 1-1 tie against England in South Africa in 2010, a game that started at 2:30 p.m. EDT in mid-June.

Fox’s average of 4,026,000 for the first three broadcasts of this year was 193% higher than the 1,374,000 for the first three games in 2018, when the US failed to qualify.

Telemundo’s coverage averaged 2.6 million for the first four games, up 73% from 1.5 million for the first four games four years ago.

While the ratings were impressive, the game’s results weren’t all that miraculous.

After leading for most of the game, the United States conceded a crucial penalty in the last ten minutes of the game – which Wales converted to make it 1–1.

The next game for the USMNT is a crucial and highly anticipated game against England, which will surely be one of the games to watch in this World Cup.

England put in a dominant performance against Iran in the opening group stage match, winning 6–2.