Wednesday's Argentina-Netherlands match on ESPN averaged a 4.3 final rating and 6,823,000 viewers, making it the highest-rated and most-viewed World Cup semifinal game in network history. The game topped the figures the Germany-Brazil semifinal drew on Tuesday. The average 4.2 rating for the two semifinals is up 56% from a 2.7 average rating in '10, when the tournament was held in South Africa. It also is up 45% from a 2.9 average rating for the '06 event in Germany. Argentina-Netherlands ranks as the highest-rated and most-viewed World Cup match on ESPN or ESPN2 not involving the U.S. men's team (ESPN). Meanwhile, Univision said that it averaged 5.8 million viewers for Germany-Brazil and 5.4 million for Argentina-Netherlands. In Houston, David Barron noted this put the "two-network totals" at 12.4 million for Germany-Brazil and 12.2 million for Argentina-Netherlands (CHRON.com, 7/10). Elsewhere, CBC Senior Communications Officer Simon Bassett said that 2.9 million Canadians "tuned in to CBC's English-language broadcast" of Germany-Brazil. By comparison, 3.3 million viewers on CBC "watched the deciding game of this year's Stanley Cup finals" (AP, 7/11).
ESPN CONFIDENT IN LEGACY: ESPN Senior VP & Exec Producer Jed Drake talked about the net's World Cup coverage and the tournament's impending switch to Fox Sports in '18, saying, "We’ve had an incredible challenge and very ambitious plans and we’ll leave a legacy on this event that will be difficult to go past for some time. We love this event. We wish Fox well. But in no small way, we’ve recognized our opportunity to do our best and the collateral result is we’ve left the bar high for Fox, which was always part of our thinking. With two matches to go (including Saturday’s third-place game), I think we’ve achieved that" (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 7/11).
MLS STREAMING GOING SWIMMINGLY: MLS Digital VP Chris Schlosser said interest in MLS has "skyrocketed" since the start of the World Cup. He added that there "has been a 300% jump in subscriptions to MLS Live, the league’s subscription package that includes streaming for all regular season MLS games." BUZZFEED's Myles Tanzer reported MLS "has also seen its website’s monthly unique visitors multiply threefold -- to a total of 6.6 million in June." The package, which "normally goes for $64, was reduced to $32 on Thursday as a mid-season special" (BUZZFEED.com, 7/10).
