Maybe it was the World Cup Draw bounce or a nice lift from the previous weekend’s Manchester United game, but the Nielsen Ratings for last weekend’s match between Portsmouth and Burnley, far from being two popular teams in America, achieved the sixth highest rating of the 2009-2010 Premier League season thus far.
The broadcast generated a 0.2 rating and was watched by an estimated 278,078 viewers in the United States. Take a look to see how well the ratings are compared to the rest of the season so far:
Top Nielsen Ratings for Premier League Games on ESPN2: August through December 5, 2009:
- Liverpool v Aston Villa, 8/24/2009, Monday, 3pm ET, 398391 viewers
- Portsmouth v Manchester United, 11/28/2009, Saturday, 10am, 396995
- Wigan v Man United, 8/22/2009, Saturday, 10am, 374799
- Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur, 10/31/2009, Saturday, 8:45am, 325187
- Manchester City v West Ham United, 9/28/2009, Monday, 3pm, 293600
- Portsmouth v Burnley, 12/5/2009, Saturday, 7:45am, 278,078
- Portsmouth v Everton, 9/26/2009, Saturday, 7:45am, 270927
- Bolton Wanderers v Tottenham Hotspur, 10/3/2009, Saturday, 10am, 265508
- Tottenham v Sunderland, 11/7/2009, Saturday, 10am, 259831
- Chelsea v Burnley, 8/29/2009, Saturday, 7:45am, 253934
- Liverpool v Burnley, 9/12/2009, Saturday, 10am, 253779
- Aston Villa v Manchester City, 10/5/2009, Monday, 3pm, 248956
- Liverpool v Manchester City, 11/21/2009, Saturday, 7:45am, 236247
- Fulham v Hull City, 10/19/2009, Monday, 3pm, 209207
- Aston Villa v Chelsea, 10/17/2009, Saturday, 7:45am, 206886
- Wolverhampton Wanderers v Aston Villa, 10/24/2009, Saturday, 7:45am, 204882
- Burnley v Sunderland, 9/19/2009, Saturday, 7:45am, 199380
- Liverpool v Birmingham City, 11/9/2009, Monday, 3pm, 182138
- Chelsea v Hull City, 8/15/2009, Saturday, 7:45am, 164485
The relegation scrap can be as interesting as the race for the championship….
Three of the top 7 involve Portsmouth. I’m not surprised. I’m shocked. And I agree with man99utd: The relegation scrap can be fascinating, in most cases, more entertaining than watching the same old teams fight for Champions League spots.
You mean you didn’t know about the Pompey underground?
Of course I know about the Pompey Underground. I just thought I was the only member! With only 150 members of PFCUSA, we’re hardly followed here in the States. I’m not really sure what is driving the ratings.
I don’t mean offense here – because the same can be said of my team lately.
Do you think that maybe they see that their team is playing Pompy and expect tons of goals?
Everyone likes to see their team win.
Then again – that logic would put Chelsea against Hull as a much higher game than 19th.
No offense taken. I have run into so few Pompey supporters here in the states that I feel like the ultimate underdog.
Pompey have given up a few goals, but they have scored them in spurts as well. I hope people watched it because they thought they would see an entertaining match.
The Chelsea/Hull game is rated so low because ESPN aired the game last minute without any promotion whatsoever. With the proper promotion, that could have been the highest rated BPL game at that time considering it was the kickoff of the season and so many eyeballs would be curious.
Then again…I haven’t seen ads for either the BPL or La Liga on ESPN since the season started. Aside from the small mention on an ESPN show they haven’t been promoting any soccer aside from the World Cup and MLS.
The thing is, we’re not really dealing with big numbers, so the slightest of reasons could cause oddball ratings for certain games. Normally, I might have just DVD’d the game and gone through it quickly before the next matches started, but for some reason I also ended up watching this one from start to finish and even advised a buddy from work to watch it as well.