US-England World Cup game seen by 19.98M on US television

NEW YORK (AP) — The United States’ 0-0 draw against England in the World Cup drew 19.98 million viewers for English- and Spanish-language broadcasts, the third-most watched men’s soccer game on U.S. television.

The match, which kicked off at 2 p.m. EST on Friday, was seen by 15,377,000 viewers on Fox, the most for a U.S. English-language men’s soccer telecast. The figure was 6% above the 14.51 million for Brazil’s penalty-kicks win over Italy in the 1994 final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, a Sunday 3:30 p.m. EDT start that July 17 viewed by 14,510,000 on ABC, according to Fox.

The U.S.-England game was viewed by 4.6 million on Telemundo, a division of Comcast Corp.‘s NBCUniversal. It was the third-most-watched Spanish language World Cup telecast in the U.S. since at least 2006, topped by the United States’ 2-2 group-stage draw with Portugal in 2014, seen by 6.5 million on Univision with a 6 p.m. EDT start in mid-June, and Brazil’s 2-0 win over Serbia on Thursday, a 2 p.m. EDT game seen by 5.7 million on Thanksgiving.

According to Nielsen, the only men’s soccer matches with more viewership on U.S. television were Germany’s win over Argentina in the 2014 final, seen by 22.67 million, and Spain’s victory over the Netherlands in 2010, seen by 21.36 million. Both those matches, televised by ABC and Univision, were on Sundays in July, with kickoff at 2:30 p.m. EDT in 2010 and 3 p.m. EDT in 2014.

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