A middle-of-the-night timeslot meant far fewer viewers for the latest USWNT Women’s World Cup match.
Tuesday’s 3 AM ET United States-Portugal FIFA Women’s World Cup match averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.35 million viewers on FOX, marking the network’s largest-ever audience in that timeslot. As one would expect given the timeslot, viewership was far lower than the first two USWNT group play matches, which averaged 6.43 and 5.26 million.
The scoreless draw, which peaked with 1.73 million viewers from 4:45-5 AM ET, ranks as the least-watched USWNT World Cup match since a 2011 group play matchup against Sweden on ESPN (1.26M).
It still delivered the third-largest audience of the tournament, trailing only the first two USWNT matches. Even with a sharply-lower audience on Tuesday, the three USWNT group stage matches averaged 4.3 million viewers on FOX — up 11% from 2019 (3.91M) and the largest group stage average on record. The previous record was 4.28 million in 2015, when the tournament took place in North America and all three matches aired in primetime (though one was carried by FS1).
As with all historical comparisons, keep in mind that out-of-home viewing was not factored into viewership in prior tournaments.
Kansas City led all markets Tuesday with a 2.0 rating and 23 share, followd by Austin, Texas, at a 1.8 and 24. The Bay Area placed third at a 1.5/15, with Washington D.C., Cincinnati and Sacramento rounding out the top five at a 1.4 (18 share in Washington, 12 share in the other two markets).
It is rare for a major sporting event to air live in the overnight hours. In 2008, the Olympic men’s basketball final won by the U.S. “Redeem Team” averaged 6.0 million on NBC despite a 2:30 AM ET start. The Australian Open singles finals regularly air at 3:30 AM ET, with only one of those matches cracking the million viewer mark — Roger Federer’s 2017 win over Rafael Nadal (1.09M).
With the USWNT placing second in their group, all of the team’s remaining matches will air in the overnight or early morning hours. Had the Americans placed first, they would have played in primetime on Saturday (10 PM ET) and then potentially again on August 10 (9 PM). Instead, they will play at 5 AM ET on Sunday and potentially 3:30 AM ET on August 11.
(Numbers from Fox Sports)
