Though Netherlands/Mexico was the biggest draw of the weekend, the other Round of 16 matches also performed well.
ESPN earned a 3.9 U.S. rating and 6.4 million viewers for Sunday’s Costa Rica/Greece FIFA World Cup match, up 15% in both ratings and viewership from Argentina/Mexico on ABC in 2010 (3.4, 5.6M) and up 70% and 132%, respectively, from Portugal/Netherlands in 2006 (2.3, 2.8M).
Costa Rica/Greece ranks as the fifth-most watched men’s soccer telecast ever on ESPN or ESPN2, trailing only four other matches from this year’s World Cup — USA/Portugal (18.2M), USA/Ghana (11.1M), Germany/USA (10.8M) and Sunday’s early game between the Netherlands and Mexico (6.5M).
Shifting to Saturday’s action, ABC earned a 3.8 and 6.1 million viewers for Brazil/Chile — up 73% in ratings and 89% in viewership from Uruguay/South Korea on ESPN in 2010 (2.2, 3.2M) and up 73% and 102%, respectively, from Germany/Sweden in 2006 (2.2, 3.0M). Brazil/Chile ranks as the third-highest rated non-USA Round of 16 match ever on any ESPN network, trailing only Sunday’s games.
ABC also earned a 3.3 and 5.4 million for Colombia/Uruguay, down 61% in ratings and 65% in viewership from Ghana/USA in 2010 (8.5, 15.2M) but up 32% and 73%, respectively, from Argentina/Mexico in 2006 (2.5, 3.1M). The Saturday matches also averaged 4.3 million viewers on Univision.
As previously reported, Sunday’s Netherlands/Mexico match topped the charts over the weekend with 6.5 million viewers on ESPN and 17.0 million overall. ESPN’s telecast was up 48% in ratings and 52% in viewership from Germany/England in 2010 (2.7, 4.3M) and up 43% and 65%, respectively, from England/Ecuador on ABC in 2006 (2.8, 4.0M).
(Weekend numbers from ESPN, Univision; 2010 and 2006 numbers from Sports Business Daily)
