CBS hosted a triple-header of soccer coverage on its broadcast TV channel on Saturday, Aug. 24. That included back-to-back-to-back coverage of a Serie A game before a pair of National Women’s Soccer League contests. The combined viewership for the three games on the CBS TV channel was 1.118 million.
Breaking that figure down, 360,000 people watched the Serie A contest between Parma and Milan. With a noted American presence in this game, CBS designated considerable coverage to Parma against Milan. That included sending its Serie A studio crew out to Italy for pitchside coverage of the game.
This immediately preceded a pair of NWSL games. At 2:30 p.m., NY/NJ Gotham FC hosted the Portland Thorns with coverage available on CBS and Paramount+. Gotham won the game, 2-0, behind goals from Ella Stevens and Yazmeen Ryan. For this game, 310,000 people tuned in on the CBS broadcast channel. Finally, at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, the San Diego Wave hosted Angel City FC in one of NWSL’s big clashes. CBS pulled an audience of 448,000 for the finale of its tripleheader on Saturday. That makes the final NWSL game the most-viewed fixture among the three on the CBS broadcast channel.
The NWSL has been a regular program on CBS and its other TV channels. Viewership may not have been record-breaking for CBS on Saturday, but consistent viewership across the three games shows that there continues to be interest in the league.
Earlier this season, NWSL reported that CBS averaged 546,300 viewers for the league’s East-West battle between NJ/NY Gotham FC and Angel City FC before registering its second-most-watched regular season match on a CBS platform as 553,000 viewers watched Seattle Reign FC and Portland Thorns FC on CBS.
Meanwhile, AC Milan will always have a flair for Americans. Christian Pulisic and Yunus Musah started against Parma, and that should have drawn strong audiences for CBS. However, fans also want to watch headline matchups with the best players against one another. Parma, which only just came up from Serie B, may not move the needle as much as a club like Inter Milan or Juventus. Had CBS put in the same promotional effort and triple-header for a Milan game against one of its traditional rivals, more fans may have tuned in. That could snowball into stronger audiences for the NWSL fixtures as well.
Regardless, the CBS triple-header viewership on broadcast TV was a good start. The return of college and professional football as we enter September makes it difficult to think this will be a regularity. However, come springtime, CBS can continue putting a slew of games on broadcast TV.
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