With World Cup competition heating up, Univision Television Group has singled out three markets for what Kevin Cuddihy, UTG president, calls “tremendous” viewing growth, both on air and online. New York’s household ratings are up 28% through June 22, compared to the same point in Cup competition in 2010, while Miami is up 36% and Puerto Rico grew 22%. Part of that, notes Cuddihy, is related to Hispanic population growth in those markets, per the latest Census.
Online viewing has been on fire since day one of the Cup, and it has not let up. Univision’s owned markets have had over 27 million live streams through June 25. The top 13 Univision O&O markets have averaged over 370,000 unique users per match.
Through June 25, Univision Digital’s 2014 World Cup live streaming has more than doubled its entire 2010 World Cup streaming tally. Furthermore, 87% of World Cup traffic is on a mobile device, compared to 37% back in 2010.
As the Round of 16 starts to take shape, Cuddihy says Univision is well poised for more boomer numbers, with the likes of Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile and Costa Rica, moving on. “A lot of people are surprised that [a number of] western European nations are going home,” he says. “The Hispanic teams are doing very well in the tournament.”
The pending advancement of the U.S. team…knock on wood…would be a boom for viewership as well. Univision Deportes has exclusive Spanish language rights for the U.S. men’s home soccer matches for the next eight years, Univision announced at its upfront presentation, and exclusive rights to the first Copa America Centenario in 2016.
“The U.S. going through to the next round would be great,” says Cuddihy. “We do very well with U.S. games.”
With that in mind, I’m off to the pub to watch the U.S. tie Germany.
