As you might have guessed from my incessant posts about the World Cup both here and at With Leather, I’ve got World Cup fever, and the only cure is alcohol in the morning. And I’m apparently not alone. Despite the incessant braying of people who take pride in not liking soccer, the USA’s loss to Ghana earned big ratings for ABC on Saturday, while the World Cup ratings for ESPN are up from four years ago.
[USA-Ghana] was the most-watched men’s game in FIFA World Cup history in the United States. The game scored 14.9 million viewers between 2:30 p.m. and 5:12 p.m. ET Saturday for ABC, Nielsen Media Research said Sunday…
It’s been a strong World Cup so far this time around for ESPN/ABC, which has banked a lot on a multimillion-dollar marketing push to entice American viewers to the worldwide TV equivalent of the Super Bowl here in the United States. Fifty games into the monthlong tournament, ESPN and ABC’s World Cup morning and afternoon coverage from South Africa has averaged a 1.8 rating and 2.8 million viewers. That’s up 48% from 2006′s 1.2 household rating and 60% from 2006′s average of 1.7 million viewers. [THR]
Frankly, I’m ready for the World Cup to be over, but not because the Americans got knocked out. All these games are killing my productivity. Ordinarily I’m fully dedicated to my work: creating cat Photoshops, capturing the very best screen shots of cleavage, and recycling jokes about farting and penises. The distraction of the World Cup makes me half-ass my job, which means I’m only working twice as hard as most of my readers. Buncha quarter-assers.
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I can’t wait for Enrico to come in and make snide remarks about soccer and Otto Man tells him to go fuck himself.
England is in mourning because of the 4-1 loss yesterday and I am loving it. They got their arses kicked. Plus I hate Germany!
I love football.
The other cure for World Cup fever (at least in this country) is the US team getting knocked out.
I’ve got a busy afternoon ahead of me, so I’ll go ahead make a pre-emptive go-fuck-yourself strike against all the soccer haters out there.
The poor US team has to leave Africa and return to Vegas, Miami & New York. Ghana will return to Ghana. Sooooo who’s the real winner here?
@ Smegga says: England is in mourning because of the 4-1 loss yesterday
I haven’t seen Germany spank the UK that bad since Dunkirk
Hey now. I’m a sixteenth-asser.
I never thought that I would hate anyone more than Lost fans. Soccer apologists and defenders are even worse.
/Sorry, Otto
//not for my soccer hate, but for cumming in your hair
@Mfillmore – I know. I was watching with my brother in law and he was speechless. I enjoyed it because I like good football, Germany play great football, England suck, yet my brother in law and the rest of England think they were robbed of their destiny.
No need to apologize, Enrico.
You did enough of that after the attempted sex. As always.
Here I was ready to blame Bianca K, for re-entering LD’s life after the strike against Algeria, when in reality it was Fat-Cat. It is clear he isn’t in shape for the WC, Bradley should have never put him on the field
This may be too serious a question for this forum, but how does Nielsen factor in communal watches, or do they? I watched the game in a bar with 150-200 people, and I’m sure many others did as well. But none of those bars are Nielsen households, so how do the viewers get estimated accurately?
MC Hammer, late response here, but the short answer is they don’t. That’s exactly why the NBA doesn’t put Finals games on Fridays and Saturdays.