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Any time the U.S. men’s national team steps on the pitch, it’s going to draw a lot of eyeballs, but Wednesday’s match against Bosnia and Herzegovina was historic.
Preliminary numbers from Nielsen report that the broadcast on Fox averaged 24.43 million viewers, peaking at 31.88 million late in the game.
That was enough to make it the largest English-language audience for a soccer broadcast in U.S. history.
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It edged out the previous record holder — the 2015 Women’s World Cup final between the U.S. and Japan — which averaged 22.32 million viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Telemundo’s Spanish telecast of the game brought in 9.1 million viewers for a combined total of 33.53 million, easily a record for a soccer match broadcast in the United States.
But what else is new? This World Cup has been obliterating ratings records since it started.
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The highly anticipated clash saw the U.S. trying to win its first knockout stage match since 2002 and bounce back from a disappointing loss to Turkey that capped off the group stage.
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Meanwhile, Bosnia and Herzegovina looked to play spoiler after advancing from Group B as a third-place team, hoping to eliminate the United States on its home soil.
In the end, the U.S. came out with a 2-0 win, but it came at a cost. Star striker Folarin Balogun was on the receiving end of a wildly controversial red card that not only took him out of the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina — forcing the U.S. to play the last 25 minutes or so a man down — but also ruled him out of Monday’s Round of 16 match against Belgium.
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