By Sean Gregory
In the U.S., no stupid horn is slowing the World Cup ratings. Through the first weekend of the tournament, covering eight matches, ESPN and ABC averaged some 4,247,000 viewers per match, up 80% versus the first eight matches of the 2006 World Cup. Saturday's United States-England game attracted about 17.1 million viewers between ABC and Univision, the Spanish-language network (this total includes 13 million viewers on ABC, and 4.1 million on Univision). The game was the most-watched opening round World Cup broadcast ever.
The combined viewership of USA-England beat the ratings of the first six games of the NBA finals, which averaged 16.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen Sports (though the crucial Game 5 alone drew 18.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen). USA-England trounced the Stanley Cup finals, which averaged 5.2 million viewers. It even compared favorably to the average viewership for an NFL regular season broadcast, 18.4 million — though U.S.-England lagged the average viewership for an NFL playoff game, 36 million, by a very healthy margin.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1991933_1991952_1996968,00.html#ixzz0r6IW1csb
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