America gets ready for greatest ratings day in soccer’s TV history

By Gary Hopkins
26 June 2010

A historic day in American soccer lies ahead today with the possibility that long-standing TV viewing records for the sport in the USA will tumble.

When the USA play Ghana today at 2.30pm Eastern Time on a Saturday afternoon (7.30m in the UK and 8.30pm is South Africa), and with the country whipped up into a Donovan-led frenzy, the ratings look certain to challenge the previous record for the most-watched soccer match in America.

The record is currently 18m, the number of people who watched the US Women’s 1999 World Cup win over China, followed by the 14.5m viewers in the USA for the 1994 Italy v Brazil World Cup final, and then the 13.7m viewers for USA v Brazil in the round of 16 in 1994. Significantly, in ratings terms, all those games were held on US soil.

The big numbers already achieved for some matches in South Africa are therefore extraordinary.

Predictions abound as to how many will tune in today. Some 13m watched the England game two weeks ago on ABC, with another 3.8m watching on Spanish-language Univision (for a total of 16.8m).

Then 6.1m tuned in on a workday Wednesday morning (plus 2.2m more on Univision) to see Donovan’s injury-time winner against Algeria, making that the most watched weekday broadcast in ESPN’s history.

Interestingly another 1.1m people watched the game live on the internet on ESPN3, making it the largest US audience ever for a sports event on the web, and another 650,000 people watched while riding the train or bus on their mobile phones, a sign of the changing times for sports viewing platforms.

It should surprise nobody if the ABC audience alone for today’s game exceeds 18m.

Certainly Donovan’s last-gasp goal the other day is drawing interest from writers, media and fans that would not know offside from off-Broadway, but these are people that soccer long since wrote off as being essential to the games growth in the USA.

They are nice to have for ratings, but soccer is not banking on them for the future. The real story of the ratings and interest is the number of fans that are now soccer-savvy, and fully appreciative and knowledgeable about the global game.

Soccer in the States today bear little or no resemblance to 1994 or indeed 1999 when the 18m record was set. Then it was primarily “bandwagon” effect, today it’s a soccer-educated audience. They know and appreciate quality soccer and will engage and consume it when presented with it.

International media judge American soccer by what they know about Major League Soccer, but that’s a mistake. MLS is not yet ready to be the flagship for soccer in the USA. It’s still a young developing league, barely 15 years into its existence. Major League Soccer’s time will and is coming. (What Championship team or mid-level Premier League team in England would not want the 35,000 average crowds the Seattle Sounders deliver each week. Which of those English club would not want the Sounders’ profits!)

The MLS is not then the bellwether of soccer popularity. The World Cup is the true bellwether of it growing importance in America, and today’s numbers will be a loud shout to that effect, when released in the coming days.

In 1990 just 713,000 tuned in for USA versus Italy. Today’s figures will be massive because today’s soccer on TV is about “quality” and “experience”. The World Cup represents both. The games are of great quality, by definition, while the TV experience from ABC and ESPN is exceptional. It’s a different Soccer America in 2010.

Teenagers and young Americans love soccer, it’s a cool sport, while being a “soccer fan” is also cool. The thousands of young Americans flooding the stadiums in South Africa emphasise the point along, with the hundreds of thousands pouring into bars across America.

Hispanic America, soon to be 25 per cent of the USA’s population, loves soccer, as do many other ethnically diverse Americans.

ESPN and ABC are screaming from rooftops to anyone that will listen that the World Cup is the biggest of biggest deals in sports. America is finally listening. And the world should listen too.

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/06/26/america-gets-ready-for-greatest-ratings-day-in-soccers-tv-history/

"We don't want the World Cup, we don't like the World Cup, we don't like soccer, we want nothing to do with it," he said.

Is USA embracing the beautiful game?
25/06/2010 13:14

As they savor a victory that propels the United States into the next round of the planet's biggest sporting event, Americans are asking: has the country finally embraced soccer? Some see the US performance at the World Cup as a new make-or-break moment for soccer in the United States and its competence in the beautiful game.

But many experts and observers argue that soccer had been steadily gaining a fan base long before Landon Donovan scored the stoppage time goal that secured a 1-0 victory over Algeria and a place in the round of 16.

"It was a big day for football in the US," said Martin Vasquez, a Mexican-American who played in the inaugural Major League Soccer season in 1996, and who now is head coach for MLS team Chivas USA.

"The coverage that the US national team has got here has been incredible," he told AFP.

An average of 11.1 million Americans watched English and Spanish broadcasts of the first-round matches -- 68 percent more than in 2006 --including 17.1 million who tuned in for United States-England, according to the Nielsen television ratings firm.

By comparison the NBA basketball finals earlier this month averaged 18.1 million, Nielson said.

Experts say coverage of the tournament by US sports broadcast giant ESPN has gone from amateurish in 2006 to top-rate this year.

"They are treating this like the Olympics," said soccer blogger Max Bergmann.

Americans are used to seeing their teams and athletes win big, so a stale performance such as the one that saw USA crash out in the opening round in 2006 could have soured Americans on the sport.

But Bergmann, who blogs for Association Football, thinks the game is flourishing as a result of a "demographic reality" decades in the making.

More US kids play soccer than any other sport -- including American football, baseball and basketball -- thanks to youth leagues that took off in the 1980s, he pointed out in a phone call Thursday from South Africa, where he is blogging about the World Cup.

"The older generation that grew up without any interaction with soccer, they are moving offstage, and younger kids are now into it," Bergmann said.

Interest took off in earnest in the 1970s, when US soccer officials began luring global superstars like Pele and Johan Cruyff to the ultimately doomed North American Soccer League.

Prior to Donovan's thriller, the last big memory was Paul Caligiuri's miracle strike in November 1989, which gave the United States a victory over Trinidad & Tobago to make its first World Cup in 40 years.

Four years later, the United States were the hosts.

Faraway as it seems, that 1994 tournament proved vital for America's soccer standing. It sold more than 3.5 million tickets, a record which still stands, and precipitated a professional rebirth with the launch of MLS in 1996.

The 10-team league has grown to 16 today, and despite the worst recession in decades, MLS will expand to 20 teams by 2012. It claims stars like Donovan and his LA Galaxy teammate David Beckham, and France's Thierry Henri is rumored to be making a move to MLS next season.

University of Maryland coach Sacho Cirovski said there has been a steady rise in American talent over the past decade, largely as a result of a comprehensive, patient approach by the US Soccer Federation.

"It's just gratifying that all the hard work at the grass level, from youth soccer to college to pros, it's all paid off," he said.

Former president Bill Clinton -- who as honorary chairman of the bid committee to bring the tournament back to US soil sat next to Fifa chief Sepp Blatter during the US-Algeria match -- said world football powers like Brazil and Germany would now have to take notice of the US squad.

And President Barack Obama in a congratulatory phone call told the US World Cup heroes Thursday that the West Wing of the White House had erupted in cheers when Donovan scored the dramatic goal.

His spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Obama wished the US squad luck in their round-of-16 knockout clash with Ghana on Saturday, and told them that "the country was cheering them on." But not all Americans are warming to the world's game.

"It doesn't matter how you try to sell it to us, it doesn't matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn't matter how many bars open early," conservative talkshow host Glenn Beck declared on a radio program before the Cup kicked off.

"We don't want the World Cup, we don't like the World Cup, we don't like soccer, we want nothing to do with it," he said.

© Sapa - AFP
http://www.supersport.com/football/2010-world-cup/news/100625/Is_USA_embracing_the_beautiful_game

Wednesday morning’s United States vs. Algeria FIFA World Cup match on ESPN – in which the Americans scored a dramatic goal in stoppage time to earn a 1-0 win and a spot in the Round of 16 – is the highest-rated and most-watched soccer game in the history of ESPN networks, delivering a 4.6 rating (4.0 household U.S. rating), 4,582,000 households and 6,161,000 viewers for the two-hour contest (10 a.m. ET - noon).

The previous households record was set five days earlier with the U.S.-Slovenia match (June 18) – 3,906,000.


Excluding holidays, ESPN's coverage of the U.S.-Algeria game ranks as the most-watched weekday morning telecast ever for ESPN, surpassing the U.S.-Germany World Cup match from eight years ago (June 21, 2002) – 4.4 rating and 5,335,000 viewers.

The game ranked as the highest-rated program of the day on any network among M18-34 and M18-49.

Through Wednesday, June 23 (40 games on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2), the 2010 World Cup is averaging a 1.8 U.S. rating (for the two-hour match window) -- up 40% from 2006 (1.3). Household impressions are up 46% (from 1,389,000 to 2,025,000) and P2+ impressions are up 49% (from 1,789,000 to 2,658,000).

San Diego was the top market for yesterday's Team USA game, delivering an 8.9 rating – all the more impressive considering the 7 a.m. local start time. Rounding out the top 10 were Baltimore (6.7), San Francisco (6.1), Washington, D.C. (5.4), Sacramento (5.4), Houston (5.4), Las Vegas (5.4), Miami-Ft. Lauderdale (5.3), New York (5.3) and West Palm Beach (5.3). San Diego was also the top market for both the U.S./England game on ABC (11.5) and the U.S./Slovenia game on ESPN (8.5).

U.S. - Algeria Sets Records for ESPN Digital Platforms

ESPN3.com – The U.S. vs. Algeria game marked a milestone for online video, logging the largest U.S. audience ever for a sports event on the web. It attracted nearly 1.1 million unique viewers with an average time spent viewing of 43 minutes. The match also averaged 328,000 viewers per minute in its live coverage. When combined with the concurrent England vs. Slovenia match, ESPN3.com reached its peak point of viewing at around 11:30 a.m. ET when 513,000 viewers were watching each minute.

For the four World Cup matches on June 23, ESPN3.com captured 1.4 million viewers who watched for 84 million total minutes. Through 14 days of World Cup coverage (June 10-23), five million viewers have watched the World Cup on ESPN3.com and consumed more than 9.2 million total hours.

ESPN.com & ESPNSoccernet.com – ESPNsoccernet.com set an all-time record Wednesday with more visits than any day in its history. On June 23, ESPN.com World Cup content generated 8.8 million visits and 33.3 million page views. To date, the site has had 68.7 million visits and 239.3 million page views of World Cup coverage.

Additionally, GameCast for the U.S. vs. Algeria match reached one million visitors who spent 10.1 million total minutes watching the match. ESPN.com also logged a record day of delivering live scoring updates to fans. The site peaked at 1.7 million concurrent users, beating its previous record by 42 percent.

ESPN Digital Audio – ESPNRadio.com logged the largest concurrent audience ever to a single stream according to Ando Media. The player peaked at 180,000 listeners connected to the U.S. vs. Algeria match, nearly doubling its previous record for the U.S. vs. Slovenia (June 18). Additionally, ESPNRadio.com saw record online traffic with 668,000 visits and 1.1 million page views throughout the day, according to Omniture.

From June 11-20, the World Cup had generated nearly 3.8 million total listening hours, with an average time spent listening of 47 minutes.

ESPN Mobile -- June 23 was the most-trafficked day to-date for World Cup content across all of ESPN’s mobile platforms. ESPN's FIFA World Cup 2010 iPhone app delivered 3.2 million visits and 19.9 million page views for the day. Since the World Cup began, the app has seen 30.8 million visits and 200.6 million page views. World Cup content on the ESPN mobile Web site also added another 2.4 million visits and 13.7 million page views to the mobile tally. To date, the mobile Web has generated 20.2 million visits and 90.7 million page views.

Nearly 650,000 users accessed the U.S. vs. Algeria match via mobile GameCast and generated 7.9 million minutes of usage.

World Cup Schedule – Round of 16
The 2010 FIFA World Cup continues with the Round of 16 elimination matches starting Saturday, June 26, on ESPN and ABC. Six of the eight matchups have already been determined, including the highly anticipated U.S. vs. Ghana (Saturday, 2 p.m./ABC), Germany vs. England (Sunday, 9:30 a.m./ESPN) and Argentina vs. Mexico (Sunday, 2 p.m./ABC). Round of 16 matches will also be available on ESPN3.com, ESPN Radio, ESPN 3D, ESPN Mobile TV and ESPN Deportes.



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