United States' Lindsey Horan, right, celebrates with Sophia Smith, left, and Megan Rapinoe after scoring during the Women's World Cup soccer match between the United States and Vietnam at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, July 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
The United States’ 3-0 victory over Vietnam in the Women's World Cup drew 6.26 million viewers, making it the most-watched soccer telecast in the U.S. since last year’s men’s World Cup final.
It is also the largest combined English- and Spanish-language audience for a U.S. women’s group stage match.
Saturday afternoon's match in Auckland, New Zealand — which kicked off at 9 p.m. EDT Friday night — averaged 5,261,000 viewers on Fox, making it the second-most watched group stage telecast since Fox started covering it in 2015. Fox and Nielsen said the audience peaked at 6.5 million for the final 15 minutes.
The largest Women’s World Cup group stage broadcast on Fox remains the 2019 U.S.-Chile match, which averaged 5,337,000.
Fox and Nielsen said it is a 99% increase over the first U.S. group stage match four years ago in France against Thailand, which started at 2:30 p.m. EDT.
The Spanish-language audience of 1 million across Telemundo, Peacock, Universo and Telemundo streaming platforms was the most-watched for a group-stage match and was surpassed only by the 2015 and '19 final. The Spanish audience was also nearly double what it was for the 2019 Thailand match.
Telemundo is a division of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal.
The total audience numbers also include 307,831 who watched via streaming on English- and Spanish-language streaming.
The next U.S. match is Wednesday night against the Netherlands.
The Drone Racing League kicked off its 2021-2022 world championship season this week. Spanning across 14 different locations over the course of the year, 12 of the world's best drone pilots will be racing against each other to bring home the title. Drone racing has grown in popularity over the past year, with the Drone Racing League seeing an uptick of nearly 200 percent average viewership, 90 percent in virtual drone racing participation and 60 percent fanbase growth over social media. Rachel Jacobson, President of the Drone Racing League, discusses the future of the sport and why she thinks drone racing will soon be on par with traditional sports.
Bill Enright, Editorial Lead for Gambling and Fantasy Content at Sports Illustrated, shares his insight into the strategy behind betting on NFL futures, such as who will win the Super Bowl or MVP award.
Sponsored by BetMGM
Jeff Stoneback, Director of Trading at BetMGM, discusses his betting insights for Super Bowl LVI futures, and says a pair of NFC East teams could make some noise come playoff time.
Sponsored by BetMGM
The final Grand Slam tennis tournament of 2021 will be lacking some of its biggest stars including Venus and Serena Williams, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal. However, with legendary names missing from the court, it could provide an opportunity for future superstars to shine. Jon Wertheim, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, joined Cheddar to discuss the fallout from the cancellations. "This is tennis' version of the NBA after [Michael] Jordan," he said. "Some Kobe [Bryant] or some LeBron [James] will come along, and we'll have new champions to cheer for."
Cheddar Bets, sponsored by BetMGM, is a first-of-its-kind look at the intersection of sports betting and financial markets with insider intel from BetMGM's oddsmakers.
In stories sure to move markets next week, investors will be served another full plate of earnings, the July jobs report comes out, and the Summer Olympics continue in Tokyo.
