Ratings improved for the UEFA Champions League Final, but the event was far from a blockbuster.
FOX drew a 1.0 final rating and 1.6 million viewers for Saturday’s Inter Milan/Bayern Munich match, up 11% in ratings and 14% in viewership from last year’s FC Barcelona/Manchester United final on ESPN (0.9, 1.4 mil) and up 43% and 50%, respectively, from Manchester United/Chelsea in ’08, also on ESPN (0.7, 1.0 mil).
Keep in mind that while this year’s match aired on a Saturday afternoon with a broadcast television platform, last year’s match aired on a weekday afternoon on cable.
Prior to the match, Fox Sports CEO David Hill said he would be “thrilled” if the rating had “a 2 in front of it,” and touted the future of soccer. Hill: “We think soccer is on the cusp right now. … This is going to be bigger than hockey in about a decade, and that?s no disrespect for hockey.”
Though it is unwise to draw conclusions from one head-to-head matchup, it should be pointed out that Saturday’s match was outdrawn head-to-head by Game 4 of the Flyers/Canadiens series on NBC (1.3).
That said, it did top third round coverage of the Byron Nelson Championship on CBS (0.9).
