USA-Japan Women's World Cup final shatters American TV ratings record

USA's Women's World Cup win over Japan is the most watched soccer match in U.S. history, shattering the previous records.

Richard Deitsch | Jul 6, 2015

USA-Japan Women's World Cup final shatters American TV ratings record /

Seems like America loves the U.S. women’s national team.

The USA's 5-2 win over Japan in the Women’s World Cup final Sunday night on FOX averaged a stunning 25.4 million viewers, making it the most-viewed soccer game ever in the United States–men’s or women’s–by a giant margin. The previous most-viewed soccer game in the U.S. came last June 22 when 18.7 million watched ESPN’s World Cup telecast of the U.S.-Portugal men’s game (combined with Univision, it totaled 24.7 million viewers). The telecast peaked at 30.9 million viewers between 8:30-8:45 p.m. ET.

Telemundo averaged 1.27 million viewers for the Sunday's final, making it the most-watched Women’s World Cup match on U.S. Spanish-language TV.

WAHL: USA's Lloyd has performance for the ages in World Cup final

In addition to Sunday's record-setter, FOX now owns the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-most-watched women’s soccer matches in history including the 2015 Women's World Cup U.S.-Germany semifinal (8.4 million viewers); the U.S.-China quarterfinal match (5.7 million), and the U.S.-Nigeria group game (5 million). The second-most-watched game remains the 1999 USA-China final on ABC (17.97 million), followed by ESPN’s telecast of the Japan-USA 2011 final (13,458,000 viewers).

DEITSCH: FOX delivers on its Women's World Cup coverage

Last night’s match was the most-watched telecast since the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament championship game on CBS (28.3 million). FOX Sports GO set a new record with 232,000 uniques.

As for local markets, Kansas City, Missouri, was the top-rated local market for the U.S.-Japan final. The rest of the Top 10 was as follows:

2. St. Louis

3. San Diego

4. Denver

5. Austin

6. Seattle

7. Washington, D.C.

8. West Palm Beach

9. San Francisco

10. Las Vegas

GALLERY: SI's best shots from the 2015 WWC final

USA wins Women's World Cup

shannon-boxx-kid-world-cup — Simon Bruty for Sports Illustrated

Published Jul 6, 2015

RICHARD DEITSCH

Richard Deitsch is a writer & editor for Sports Illustrated. He has worked at nearly every division of SI and now primarily covers sports media, women’s sports & the Olympics.