More Americans Watched the Euro 2020 Soccer Final on TV Than the NBA Finals
Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images
More people in America watched Sunday’s Euro 2020 match between Italy and England than the first three games of the NBA Finals. The stat is a testament to soccer’s growing popularity in the United States, more than it is a knock on the NBA.
An average of 9.4 million people in the United States watched the European final.
That outperforms the ongoing NBA Finals, which is averaging 8.9 million.
That’s insane.
— MLS Buzz (@MLS_Buzz) July 13, 2021
According to ESPN, the network averaged 6,488,000 viewers for the Euro 2020 Final. It was nearly two million more viewers than ESPN’s previous high for a Euro Final, which came in 2012, Spain vs Italy. Another 2.9 million tuned in Sunday on Univision, combining for a total average audience of 9.4 million people in the United States who watched the Euro 2020 Final.
In comparison, the NBA Finals, which air on ESPN’s sister network ABC have averaged 8.9 million viewers through three games, featuring the Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns. 8.56M in Game 1, 9.38M for Game 2 and 9.02 during Game 3. Viewership peaked at 11.1 million during Games 2 and 3. If the Euro Final aired on ABC instead of cable, the audience would have grown even more.
The NBA Finals are a best-of-seven series, which hopes to see drama build as more games are played. Even though the Bucks and Suns don’t represent large markets in the United States, the deeper the series goes, the more likely it is the NBA Finals on ABC will end up surpassing the Euro 2020 Final.
But it remains a nice victory for soccer to see the Euro Final get such a dramatic viewership boost on ESPN. The sport will hope to see that success eventually carry over to MLS popularity, which still remains far behind the NBA in the United States.
