World Cup soccer might be over for the United States, but it’s hardly over IN the United States. Team USA has left the building, but fans haven’t.
Two days after the United States departed from the World Cup with a loss to Ghana, Univision’s Spanish-language broadcast of Mexico vs. Argentina on June 24 drew 6.7 million U.S. viewers, making it the largest single sports event ever broadcast in Spanish, including the Super Bowl.
The Spanish-sports broadcast record it surpassed? Mexico’s World Cup victory over Iran less than two weeks earlier that drew 5.4 million viewers. Keep in mind, we’re talking about U.S. viewership.
I witnessed the Mexico devotion firsthand, as I was at my mom’s house installing fence posts in the front yard both of those record-setting weekends. The Mexican family next door had the games on Spanish-language TV – Denver’s KCEC channel 50 – with the television set just inside the front door, which was wide open for ventilation purposes.
Even with the U.S. and Mexico ousted from the tournament, there were – and are – impressive pockets of soccer fanaticism around Denver, by both foreigners rooting on the teams from their homeland and Americans who are, yes, soccer fans.
From a business standpoint, that means opportunity not only for broadcasters Univision, ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, but also for bars catering to the soccer crowd – bars like Fado Irish Pub and Restaurant in downtown Denver; Streets of London, an English bar on East Colfax; and SoBo 151, a Czech bar on South Broadway. Fado even has a World Cup fantasy league you can sign up for at the bar’s website.
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