Follow up:
World Cup TV ratings way up from 2002
NEW YORK (AP) — The World Cup final earned a 7.0 fast national rating for ABC, a 180 percentage increase from the 2002 final in Japan.
Sunday's final in Berlin, in which Italy beat France on penalty kicks, was also the third-highest rated men's soccer game on ABC since the network resumed airing the World Cup in 1994, when the tournament was held in the United States.
Only the '94 final, when Brazil beat Italy on penalty kicks (9.5), and a second-round match that year between the U.S. and Brazil (9.3), had higher ratings. This year's tournament had an advantage over 2002 because of the large time difference in the Far East.
A ratings point represents 1,096,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 109.6 million TV homes.
