2014 World Cup

Apples and oranges with midweek ratings in the same time slot. I'm not even home from work by 6 more often than not.

 

Right but it was Sunday at 6pm . The NBA or MLB would have started
that game at 9pm. NBC would have tape delayed it.

 

Allegations of match-fixing.
Now this is the soccer folks are familiar with.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/10918321/Football-match-fixing-deal-casts-cloud-over-World-Cup.html

 

The Super Bowl, which has good ratings by and large, has had a 6:30 EST Sunday kickoff for almost 40 years now.

 

does that include Univision and ESPN or only ESPN?

Is it fair to compare a first round WC match to a 1st round NBA playoff game? I think a 9.1 is fairly equivilant or better than a 1st round playoff game.

 

The NBA Finals this year did a 9.3.

Through five games, the Finals did a 9.1 last year.

 

Is the WC getting better ratings than Olympic Hockey and Basketball?

I think the lack of a time difference at this years World Cup is allowing Americans to enjoy the matches. I can't think why else this has become the near-phenomenon in the US that it has become. My wife and daughter make WC appointment viewing, something they would never do with the World Series or the NBA Finals.

 

It's to watch the men.
This is no small factor, here.
I have five sisters, been told this.

 

If the World Cup ever comes back to the US, I would fully expect 9 p.m. start times.

 

Only ESPN. Not including Univision or even ESPN's online feed.

 

That's in order to give the rights-holding network massive eyeballs for a debut series at 10 ET. You could show the Super Bowl at 4 am Sunday morning and it would still draw massive ratings.

 

My point was only that the 6-8 time slot Sunday night is not a bad one for sports. Could've used NFL regular season games to make the same point, actually. Say combined Univision-ESPN did an 11. That's being reasonably conservative. That's a damn good rating for any sport that's not the NFL.