A shift from primetime to the morning sank overnight ratings for the Women’s World Cup final, but the match still delivered for FOX.
Sunday’s United States-Netherlands FIFA Women’s World Cup match earned a 10.0 overnight rating on FOX, down 34% from U.S.-Japan in 2015, which aired in primetime (15.2), but up 16% from Japan-U.S. on ESPN in 2011 (8.6).
The 10.0 is the third-highest on record for a Women’s World Cup match, behind Japan-U.S. in ’15 and the U.S.-China final on ABC in 1999 (13.3). Three of the top seven overnights came this year, with the U.S.-England semifinal ranking sixth (5.5) and the U.S.-France quarterfinal seventh (4.9).
Regardless of gender, it is the fifth-highest soccer overnight ever on a single network. In addition to the 1999 and 2015 Women’s World Cup finals, it trails a pair of matches from the 1994 World Cup — the Brazil-Italy final (12.8) and Brazil-United States in the round of 16 (10.4).
Though the overnight rating was off 34%, the share — which measures the percentage of homes viewing a program out of the number of homes watching television — was even with 2015 at a 27.
Overnights increased 20% over last year’s France-Croatia World Cup Final on FOX, which aired in a similar Sunday morning timeslot (8.3).
Metered market figures for Spanish-language coverage on Telemundo were not available.
The complete Women’s World Cup averaged a 1.3 overnight on Fox Sports, even with 2015 and up 19% from 2011 (1.1). With this year’s tournament taking place several hours ahead of Eastern time, no match began after 3 PM ET. By comparison, a number of matches took place in primetime four years ago, including every U.S. match.
[Numbers from Fox Sports]
