US pay-television sports broadcaster ESPN attracted its largest-ever audience for a tennis match for its live coverage of the men’s final of Wimbledon on July 8, according to audience measurement company Nielsen.
Roger Federer’s four-set victory over Andy Murray on Sunday generated an average 2.9 rating – the equivalent of 3.93 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s fast national data. ESPN’s audience peaked at a 4.1 rating – 5.56 million viewers.
Two tennis tournament title matches held ESPN’s previous record rating of 2.3, but Pete Sampras v Andre Agassi at the 1995 Australian Open and Jennifer Capriati v Martina Hingis at the 2002 Australian Open were well beaten by Sunday’s match in London.
ESPN said that its coverage of the 2012 Wimbledon championships across its main channel and ESPN 2 had generated a 65-per-cent increase on the 2011 tournament audience, which was only shown on ESPN 2.
ESPN’s digital coverage of the championships also increased by 182 per cent on last year, with viewers watching a cumulative total of 126 million live minutes on the ESPN3 and WatchESPN streaming platforms this year.