World Cup ratings got off to a rough start; FS1 earned its largest MLB audience ever; ESPN scored its largest NCAA Super Regional audience in nine years.
Steep Drop For World Cup Opener
Thursday’s Russia-Saudi Arabia FIFA World Cup opener earned 1.7 million viewers on FOX, according to Deadline — down 62% from 2014 (Brazil-Croatia: 4.4M) and down 40% from 2010 (South Africa-Mexico: 2.9M). Those matches aired on ESPN, with the 2014 match in an afternoon timeslot.
Figures for Telemundo’s Spanish-language coverage were unavailable. In 2014, Univision drew 5.1 million for Brazil-Croatia. [Deadline 6.15]
FS1 Earns Largest MLB Audience
Fox Sports 1 earned a 0.6 rating and 980,000 viewers for Thursday’s Rays-Yankees Major League Baseball game, the network’s largest regular season baseball audience ever. The previous high was 909,000 for Yankees-Royals in May of last year.
The Yankees’ shutout win also delivered the second-largest weekday MLB audience since Opening Day, behind Red Sox-Yankees on ESPN last month (1.0M). [Programming Insider 6.15]
UF-Auburn Sets Super Regional Mark on ESPN
Monday’s Florida-Auburn NCAA baseball super regional earned a 0.6 rating and 891,000 viewers on ESPN, the largest audience for the round since 2009. The complete Super Regionals averaged 449,000 viewers on the ESPN family of networks, up 40% from last year and the highest since the network began covering every game in 2010. [ESPN PR 6.15]
