The team, currently America's biggest ratings draw, is still in the game.
Mexico is looking like the surest ratings bet for the duration of the World Cup. The team set Telemundo streaming records on Wednesday morning during its morning loss to Sweden.
Telemundo Deportes passed 1 million concurrent streams for the 0-3 defeat at Sweden’s hands, boding well for both Nielsen delivery and Mexico’s upcoming showing in the Round of 16. (Mexico is still contention despite its significant loss.) A Wednesday release from the NBCUniversal-owned enterprise announced that it was the biggest streaming event in NBC Sports history, save the Super Bowl.
Despite significant declines from the last World Cup in 2014, a roughly 44 percent plummet from comparable coverage on Univision and ESPN, Telemundo (and, to a lesser extent, Fox Sports) is doing exceptionally well with its coverage of Mexico. The team’s Saturday win over South Korea hit highs fro any Spanish-Language telecast with an average 7.2 million viewers across the linear network and its streaming counterparts. A whopping 6.6 million viewers tuned into the linear Telemundo telecast alone.
Mexico fans are even more important to stateside World Cup broadcast partners now that Germany is out. The European country is always a dependable draw in America when the U.S. isn’t playing. The weekend’s Germany-Sweden game earned 5.4 million viewers on Fox Sports, a high for the network’s coverage thus far. Fox brass can’t be too pleased with their Wednesday exit.
There’s no saving the 2018 World Cup ratings from being anything but shell of 2014, but the scenario looks a lot better with Mexico in play.
TV Ratings World Cup 2014