The two most popular soccer teams in America could not keep the Gold Cup quarterfinals afloat.
Thursday’s Mexico-Honduras Gold Cup quarterfinal earned 3.5 million viewers on Univision and Univision Deportes Network, down 26% from Mexico-Costa Rica in 2015, which aired on a Sunday night (4.7M). English-language coverage on Fox Sports 1 had 339,000 (-44%).
The previous night, the United States-El Salvador quarterfinal scored 1.7 million viewers on UniMas and 1.1 million on FS1. The FS1 telecast declined 27% from the 2015 U.S.-Cuba quarterfinal, which aired on the FOX broadcast network (1.5M). A similar comparison was not possible for the UniMas telecast, as 2015 figures on Univision was not available.
In other quarterfinal action, UniMas pulled 1.6 million for Jamaica-Canada Thursday night (-23%) and 756,000 for Costa Rica-Panama on Wednesday (n/a). FS1 earned 357,000 for Jamaica-Canada (-21%) and 255,000 for Costa Rica-Panama, the latter up 43% — with the caveat that the 2015 match aired on Fox Sports 2.
Going back to the end of group play last weekend, U.S.-Guatemala had 657,000 on FXX (formerly Fox Soccer Channel) last Saturday — down 39% from the final U.S. group play match in 2015, against Panama on FS1 (1.1M).
FS1 figures include pre-match coverage; Univision figures do not.
[Numbers via Univision PR/Twitter 7.21, Programming Insider 7.21]
