Nearly 12 million Americans watched on as Gareth Bale hit back to level US v Wales match
Wales’ opening fixture against the USA in the World Cup was watched by 11.7m Americans – three and a half times the total population of Wales – as Gareth Bale struck back to tie the match in the 82nd minute.
It comes after UK TV ratings showed that more viewers watched Wales play their opening World Cup match than England beating Iran.
In the US, the total viewers for Wales v USA was up five percent from the Americans´ 2-1 win over Ghana to start the 2014 tournament, the last time the USA qualified for the tournament.
8.3m watched the game in English on Fox while 3.4 million watched it in Spanish on Telemundo. It was also the most-streamed Spanish-language World Cup match so far with 1m watching on Telemundo.
In English, the match was the most-streamed group stage match in Fox Sports history with an average audience of 563,000.
The game aired at 2pm EST in the United States.
In the UK, 9.4 million who watched Wales play the USA, more than the 7.4 million who watched England play Iran. The game was also broadcast in Welsh on S4C but the data has not yet been released.
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A kick in the teeth for American pundits, who variously described Cymru as a “championship side” who would finish “last” in the group, and one claimed if the USMT fail to win against us, they should “give up” as we were the “worst” team they would play.
The manager was also called an “idiot” on ESPN sports.
Wow, over 3. X the population of Cymru watched the game in UK. That’s incredible. This may be some record, I can’t think of anything like that, except perhaps the Superbowl final, although,that is a worldwide audience, so not really comparable. Well done Cymru.