Mexico’s final match of this year’s World Cup was no match for four years ago.
Compared to Mexico’s previous round of 16 appearances, viewership fell 52% from 2014 against the Netherlands (10.4M) and 47% from 2010 versus Argentina (9.3M). Both of those matches aired on Sundays, with the latter ranking as the most-watched Spanish-language World Cup telecast ever.
Mexico’s loss, which peaked with 5.8 million viewers from 11:30-11:45 AM ET, averaged 5.5 million viewers with streaming included.
As is usually the case, Mexico was by far the biggest World Cup ratings draw on Spanish-language television, its four matches delivering the four largest audiences on Telemundo.
On FOX, the match had 4.2 million viewers with pre-match coverage included — up 65% from France-Nigeria on ESPN four years ago (2.5M) and 161% from 2010 (Netherlands-Slovakia: 1.6M).
Combined, the match had 8.6 million across FOX and Telemundo (with pre-match included).
In Monday’s late window, Belgium-Japan had 3.5 million viewers on FOX (again including pre-match) — down 9% from 2014 on ESPN (Germany-Algeria: 4.3M) but up 46% from 2010 (Brazil-Chile: 2.4M). Figures for the same match on Telemundo were not available.
[Numbers from Telemundo, Fox Sports 7.3]
