The 2014 FIFA World Cup Final between Germany and Argentina measured the third-highest TV ratings for any World Cup game and was ranked second highest among non-U.S. games for the ESPN networks, according to Zap2it. ABC won the night in ratings as Germany won the championship, 1-0, on Sunday, July 13.
Read also: Germany Is the New World Cup Champion
ABC’s coverage of the match averaged a 9.7 rating overnight, according to Nielsen. ESPN’s coverage peaked at a 14.2 rating between 5:15-5:30 p.m.
This was second-highest rated World Cup Final for either of the Disney-owned networks, ESPN and ABC.
Read also: FIFA’s Corporate Partners to Gain from Argentinean Win
This final showed a 13-percent increase in viewership over 2010’s World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands, which was hosted in South Africa. ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC averaged a rating of 3.1 through all 64 matches of this World Cup, which is a 29-percent increase from 2010, according to Zap2it.
In the 1994 World Cup, which was hosted in the United States, the Round-of-16 match between U.S. and Brazil posted a 10.4 average rating, and the final between Brazil and Italy earned a 12.8 in U.S. TV ratings. These two games, which had the benefit of being hosted on U.S. soil, are the only two to have earned a higher rating than Sunday’s final.
The match also broke some records in social media, as Facebook noted that over 88 million users participated in over 280 million interactions—posts, likes and comments—related to the final, according to The Guardian. Those figures include 10.5 million from the United States alone. According to Deadline Hollywood, the final broke the record for the highest level of Facebook activity for any sporting event in the social networking site’s history, beating out 2013’s Super Bowl XLVII, which had 245 million interactions.
Twitter also recorded new highs as it reached a peak of 618,725 tweets per minute during the game’s final buzzer. The previous record of 580,166 was set during the semi-final match in which Germany routed Brazil 7-1.
Read also: Germany Routes Brazil in World Cup Semi-Final
That semi-final match, which became the most-discussed sporting event in Twitter history, still holds the record for most tweets, totaling 35.6 million, which was not broken by Sunday’s total of 32.1 million tweets, according to The Guardian.
Comment Template