World Cup Ratings Down 42 Percent In U.S. Without American Team

MOSCOW (AP) – The lack of a U.S. team caused a big viewership drop for World Cup telecasts.
The 48 group stage telecasts on FOX and FS1 averaged 2,069,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. That is down 42 percent from the 3.54 million average on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC four years ago, and down 15 percent from the 2,429,000 average on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC eight years ago.
Excluding games involving the U.S. team in previous World Cups, the average declined 28 percent from the 2014 tou