By Fox Sports’ “summer of soccer” continues to deliver big viewership gains over three years ago.
Thursday’s Panama-United States Copa America match averaged 2.47 million viewers on FOX, trailing only the USMNT Copa America opener against Bolivia on Sunday (3.19M) as the most-watched non-World Cup soccer match ever on the network. Panama’s win, which peaked with 3.41 million viewers in the 7:30 PM ET quarter-hour, comfortably outpaced the average for USMNT Copa America matches in 2016, most of which aired on FS1 (1.52M).
Kansas City led all markets for the match with a 2.9 rating and 10 share, with Cincinnati a distant second at a 2.0/7. Atlanta (1.9/7), Dallas (1.9/8) and Baltimore (1.8/6) rounded out the top five.
Opposite the presidential debate Thursday night, Uruguay-Bolivia averaged just 272,000 on FS2.
Copa America matches are averaging 1.11 million viewers through Thursday, up more than 400 percent from the comparable point in 2021 (215K) and up 55% from 2016 (712K).
Shifting to the other major international soccer tournament, the group stage of the UEFA Euro 2024 averaged 1.05 million viewers on FOX and FS1 — surpassing 2012 (1.00M) as the most-watched group stage on English-language television. (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not tracked in Nielsen estimates prior to 2020.) Viewership is up 30% from the same point three years ago, when the tournament aired on the ESPN networks (806K).
Keep in mind that the Fox networks have carried five fewer matches than the ESPN networks did three years ago, as it sublicensed those telecasts to the streaming service Fubo — which is not Nielsen-rated. Several of the weaker 9 AM ET windows in this year’s tournament aired on Fubo and thus are not included in the average.
Group play concluded Wednesday with FOX averaging 1.46 million for Georgia’s upset of Portugal — up 20% from Portugal-France on ESPN in ’21 (1.22M). The match peaked with 1.83 million in the 4:30 PM ET quarter-hour and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale led all markets with a 2.4 rating and 12 share.
Belgium-Ukraine averaged 1.05 million on FOX earlier in the day, up 86% from Slovakia-Spain on ESPN in ’21 (564K).
