The Germany/Argentina World Cup Final delivered big ratings to broadcasters as both ABC and Univision generated the most-watched World Cup Championship in television history in their categories. On ABC, the contest averaged 17,324,000 viewers and 9.1 rating, according to Nielsen fast nationals. It also ranks as the third most-viewed World Cup game men’s or women’s in the US. In addition to ABC’s telecast, the final match on WatchESPN generated 1,800,000 live unique viewers, 112,100,000 live minutes viewed and the highest time spent per viewer (63 minutes) of any match of the 2014 World Cup. Overall, the 2014 FIFA World Cup ranks as the most-viewed World Cup ever on English-language TV in the United States. ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC combined to average 4,557,000 viewers and a 2.8 US household rating for the 64 matches, marking increases of 39% and 33% over 2010.
On Univision, the match ranks as the most-viewed World Cup final in U.S. Spanish-language TV history, averaging 9.2 million total viewers, besting the 2010 score by 4%. Overall, Univision’s Deportes’ 2014 World Cup reached nearly 81 million Total Viewers for a 34% rise over the 2010 tournament.
Canada also reports record numbers for the World Cup, with nearly 89% of the population (30.7 million Canadians) tuning in to at least some coverage of the tournament on CBC/Radio-Canada or its broadcast partners across all platforms. The Final match ranked as the most-watched match of the tournament with an average audience of more than 4.93 million viewers.
TiVo reports the World Cup’s Top Streamed World Cup Games, based on viewing data collected from an anonymous sample of ~25,000 households.
1) US/Germany on June 26
2) Belgium/US on July 14
3) US/Portugal on June 22
4) Germany/Argentina on July 13
5) Ghana/US on June 16