By Paul Kennedy

The Mexico-USA match drew an average of almost 7 million viewers on ESPN and UniMas, where it set a viewing record.

The 2.39 million viewers on ESPN was the largest television audience for a World Cup qualifier on an ESPN network, according to Nielsen Media.

The Mexico-USA rating ranked second amongadults 18-49 for original cable programming on Tuesday, though reruns dominate cable. The total average viewers for Mexico-USA ranked only 19th on cable.

An average of 4.58 millionviewers watched the 0-0 tie on UniMas, making it the most-watched telecast to date on the Univision-owned network.

UniMas beat Univision Network and Telemundo as the No. 1Spanish-language broadcast network during the time period in half of the country’s top 10 markets (Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas and Houston).

A key demographic forsoccer is adults 18-34, and Mexico-USA on UniMas ranked as the No. 3 primetime program in that age group on all of television Tuesday night.

— Birmingham, Ala., was the top ESPN marketfor the match telecast, delivering a 2.9 rating. It was followed by Austin, Texas (2.6), Seattle-Tacoma, Wash., and Columbus, Ohio (both 2.4) and Los Angeles, San Diego, Hartford-New Haven, Conn. (all2.3).

Five Most-Viewed Qualifiers or Friendlies on ESPN:
AUDIENCE MATCH DATE (NETWORK)
2,385,000Mexico vs. USA 2013 qualifier (ESPN)
1,191,000 USA vs. Mexico 2009 qualifier (ESPN2)
1,128,000 USA vs. Brazil 2012 friendly (ESPN2)
1,091,000 USA vs. Mexico 2007 friendly (ESPN2)
1,090,000 USA vs. Costa Rica 2009 qualifier (ESPN2)

MEXICO-USA DIGITAL. Fans followed the Mexico-USA match live via ESPNFC Match HQ andESPNdeportes.com Gamecast online, spending a total of 1.3 million minutes. Viewers via WatchESPN on computers, smartphones, tablets and Xbox also logged the highest total live minutes for any WorldCup qualifying match this past week, generating 3.4 million minutes across platforms.

USA-COSTA VIEWERS. Viewership figures are in for Friday’sUSA-Costa Rica match: 857,000 viewers on ESPN and 1.09 million viewers on UniMas.

REPORT: SPORTING NEWS SOCCER WRITER FIRED. The Big Lead reported that soccer writer Brian Straus, whose article on U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann examined players’ concerns about his methods and tactics on the eve of the USA-CostaRica match, was among a dozen or so writers and editors fired by Sporting News on Wednesday.

Straus, a former Soccer America correspondent, wrote for Fanhouse and was laid off and thenhired as the Sporting News’ first soccer writer when it purchased Fanhouse from AOL in 2011. This second layoff was not believed to have had anything to do with his recent article.

Sporting News was founded in 1886 and known as the bible of baseball for many years. It switched to a biweekly publishing schedule in 2008, went monthly in 2011 and ceased publishing a print editionat the end of last year. It is now a web-only operation.
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6 Comments

  1. The game would most likely have had many more viewers if it did not start @10:45 p.m. for us on the East Coast.

  3. These numbers are only getting bigger and are being driven by the Latino demographic, which pretty much will drive all kinds of trends in the 21st century If MLS was smart they would borrow a bit from David Stern and commence more marketing of their young stars. Agudelo, Villarreal, Hamid, Nguyen, Jack Mc. Etc. doesn’t matter if they are uncapped , unpolished. Whatever. Create the “perception” as stars in the making…..as the future. Like all young people, young soccer fans love being part to the ground floor …… If the US Federation was smart, they would make twice as many commercials featuring Torres, Gonzalez, and Gomez. Latinos don’t watch the academy awards in the numbers they should because they are criminally/disproportionately underrepresented . Are you listening US soccer federation ?

  4. “criminally”..? Nice job promoting victimhood David……only those who identify themselves as a race first, go around counting the color of people’s faces……what did MLK say, “…..not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character….”..?….you missed the mark at the end, buddy

  5. David, excellent points. It’s almost like they dont want to make more money. They are holding out but wont be able to for too long now.

  6. Chris, is Hispanic but cant see reality. He thinks he is something he is not. Every organization like the Nba know what demographcis to target and how. USSF is defenitely not creating the exitement it should be and that is only because they are not targeting the right crowd. Its common sense.

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