In the first year of a new television deal, viewership soared for the UEFA Champions League semifinals.
Tuesday’s second leg of the Barcelona-Liverpool UCL semifinal, which saw Liverpool overcome a 3-goal first leg deficit to win on aggregate, delivered a combined audience of 1.43 million viewers across Univision, Univision Deportes Network and TNT — up 40% from last year (Bayern Munich-Real Madrid: 1.02M) and up 185% from 2017 (Monaco-Juventus: 504K).
It was the most-watched UEFA semifinal in at least five years.
The match drew 770,000 on Univision and UDN (+50%), trailing only the first leg six days earlier (789K) as the most-watched UEFA semifinal on a single outlet.
TNT’s coverage delivered 664,000 (+30%), the largest audience for a UEFA semifinal on English-language TV since 2016 (Real Madrid-Juventus: 704K).
In other action, Wednesday’s second leg of Tottenham-AFC Ajax had a combined 1.12 million (+75%), with 611,000 on the Univision networks (+174%) and 509,000 on TNT (+22%).
The complete UEFA Champions League semifinals averaged a combined 1.25 million viewers, up 50% from last year (835K) and up 92% from 2017 (653K). The Univision networks averaged 695,000, a record for the UEFA semifinals on a single outlet. TNT averaged 556,000 (+17%).
All four semifinal matches combined for more than one million viewers, compared to just one of the previous twelve. Prior to this year, the matches aired on a combination of FS1, Fox Deportes and ESPN Deportes.
[Numbers from Univision]
