Womens’ World Cup Final Scores Big for Fox

UPDATED: The United States’ huge 5-2 victory over Japan to win the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup was also a tremendous score for Fox.

The game dominated Sunday night, averaging 25.4 million viewers, according to fast national ratings (updated to properly reflect the live nature of the game, and all time zones.) That makes it the most-watched soccer match in U.S. history, according to Fox Sports.

It’s also a huge leap from the 2011 Women’s World Cup final (13.5 million) and 1999’s U.S. victory (18 million), both on ESPN.

The previous high for a soccer match in the U.S. was set just last year, when the USA-Portugal game during the World Cup averaged 18.2 million on June 22, 2014.

Sunday night’s match peaked at 30.9 million viewers between 8:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. Fox pointed out that the match “exceeded every game of the NBA Finals, the 2014-15 broadcast season average of every show in primetime, including Sunday Night Football, and the primetime average of the Sochi Olympic Winter Games.”

Fox Sports also recorded 232,000 unique streams on its Fox Sports GO service, a new record.

The match also scored record ratings for Telemundo, which carried the Spanish-language telecast. The Telemundo airing averaged 1.3 million viewers, up 97% from the 2011 final’s Spanish-language broadcast. It became the most-watched FIFA Women’s World Cup game in U.S. Spanish TV history. Among adults 18-49, Telemundo’s coverage averaged 707,000 viewers.

For Fox, the top USA vs. Japan markets were:

Kansas City (20.6 million)
St. Louis (20.5 million)
San Diego (19.5 million)
Denver (19.4 million)
Austin (19.1 million)
Seattle (18.3 million)
Washington, DC and West Palm Beach, Fla. (18.2 million)
San Francisco and Las Vegas (17.7 million)

Beyond the World Cup, the most-watched program of the night was ABC’s 8/7c showing of Celebrity Family Feud (6.9 million).