For the past two decades, much has been written about how soccer is poised to become a big player in U.S. television sports, and some viewership statistics suggest that soccer’s promise finally is being realized: Networks this year are expected to set records for the number of televised games and viewers tuned in to them, according to research compiled by
Fox Sports.
Soccer’s growth as a TV sport is helped by the country’s changing demographics, as Hispanics make up more than 17 percent of the population, according to the U.S. census. But TV networks have proved to be the main driver of soccer’s growth, putting more soccer matches on their schedules each year. The number of televised matches has seen massive growth on English-language TV since 2003, underscoring how much potential networks believe soccer still has.
For example, in 2003 — a Women’s World Cup year — English-language U.S. networks carried 78 matches, according to research Fox Sports executives shared with SportsBusiness Journal. Last year — also a Women’s World Cup year — that number hit a whopping 1,300 matches.
Not surprising, viewership figures have grown significantly, too. In 2003, those 78 television matches combined resulted in 4 billion minutes of viewing. Twelve years later, in 2015, networks saw more than a tenfold increase in viewing minutes, to 42.2 billion.
“There’s more soccer on television today than there’s ever been before at the highest quality,” said David Nathanson, head of business operations for Fox Sports. “It’s so accessible and so widely available across multiple platforms.”
Soccer’s biggest viewership growth, at least on an English-language basis, has come from international tournaments like the World Cup.
Perhaps the best example of this occurred this summer, when Fox carried the Copa America Centenario and ESPN produced the UEFA Euro 2016. Both saw big audiences. The Copa averaged 987,000 viewers across the Fox networks, more than double Fox’s average audience for 2015’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, another international tournament that featured the U.S. men’s team. Meanwhile, Euro 2016 averaged 921,000 viewers during morning and early afternoon windows on ESPN and ESPN2, viewership that was down slightly from four years earlier, in part because of tournament expansion.
“I don’t think anybody is surprised by how well major soccer events and major clubs do when it comes to drawing media attention and on-site attention and commercial attention,” said Scott Guglielmino, ESPN’s senior vice president of programming. “We focus a lot around live rights. But the ongoing, daily share of voice that soccer demands is really significant and growing. It’s really relevant.”
The story for individual soccer leagues, though, is muddier. Major League Soccer touted ratings gains at its All-Star break this year. But those gains primarily came from better TV windows. Fox put several of its games on its broadcast network, which has higher viewership than its cable sports channel.
Even the English Premier League has seen its ratings stagnate. Ratings for games on cable (not including matches aired on NBC’s broadcast channel) have been relatively flat since 2013-14, when NBC Sports Group picked up the rights.
But the league’s total TV viewership has grown significantly because NBC has more games on its schedule. In 2012-13, EPL’s last season with ESPN and Fox Sports, the league accounted for 5.5 billion total minutes of viewing. Last season, across NBC’s networks, that number more than doubled to 12 billion minutes.
Fox saw a similar stagnating ratings trend with its Champions League Final, which has hovered around a 1.0 rating for the past six years.
“Regardless of what the numbers say, it means that more people are watching the sport, more people are following the stars, and that soccer continues to rise in this country,” Nathanson said. “The NFL will always be king in the U.S., but there’s no question that there’s room for other major sports to take major market share in this country. … In time, soccer will be a top-three sport in this country, based on viewership. Certainly it will be in the top five in the next three years.”
The best viewership from a club perspective is on Spanish-language TV, such as Univision’s Liga MX coverage. A quarterfinal match in May between Chivas de Guadalajara and Club America averaged 2.7 million viewers, which drew more viewers than many NHL playoff games on NBC Sports Network, for example.
Both Guglielmino and Nathanson have little doubt that the big gains the sport has experienced will continue. “We have a long way to go before soccer competes with the top two or three sports in the USA in terms of popularity. But we’re on that road,” Nathanson said.
Guglielmino agreed. “As a population, Americans get up for soccer at the highest levels,” he said.
“There are a bunch of different yard markers along the way that keep me optimistic.”
John Ourand can be reached at jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ourand_SBJ.
