The Copa America soccer tournament opened with multiple milestones on Fox Sports and Univision.
Friday’s United States/Colombia Copa America match earned a 0.7 final rating and 1.3 million viewers on Fox Sports 1 Friday night, topping last year’s Jamaica/USA Gold Cup semifinal as the second-most watched men’s soccer match ever on the network. Last year’s United States/Mexico CONCACAF Cup match holds the top spot (1.6M).
On Univision and Univision Deportes Network, the match scored 3.9 million — the largest audience ever for a Copa America opener on any network. The combined audience of roughly 5.2 million exceeds each of the Stanley Cup Final games thus far and is not far off the average for the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals on ESPN (5.6M).
Keep in mind the above figures include 30 minutes of prematch coverage. Multiple outlets reported that FS1 earned 1.5 million for its coverage of the match, a figure that likely excludes the pre-match window.
On Sunday, Mexico/Uruguay scored 5.1 million on Univision and UDN — the largest audience for any soccer match on a single network since last year’s Mexico/Jamaica Gold Cup final (5.7M). English-language coverage of the match aired on the FOX broadcast network, which delivered a 0.7 overnight rating. Final figures will not be available until later in the week.
The opening weekend of the tournament averaged 2.9 million viewers on Univision/UDN, 14% higher than its average during the 2014 World Cup group stage.
(Wknd. numbers via Univision, Programming Insider, ShowBuzz Daily, Soccer America)
