The 2014 World Cup was the most watched sporting event in the world and American viewers turned out in droves to not only cheer on Team USA and turn Tim Howard into a social media rock star but also made the Germany-Argentina final a record-breaker in terms of American viewership.

The World Cup also was one of the biggest TV Everywhere events in history, with fans taking advantage of online and mobile platforms to experience all the action, anytime, anywhere.

Forbes tech writer Jeff Bercovici tracked the growth of mobile audiences around the World Cup and offered a final tally of Comcast customers who accessed the tournament through Xfinity TV platforms.    

On Xfinity TV, we broke more records than Germany’s Miroslav Klose:

  • In total, there were more than 13 million live streams, of World Cup matches by Xfinity TV customers either via Xfinity TV Go or Watch ESPN. This equals approximately 90,000 live streams for every hour of World Cup match coverage.

  • The USA vs. Belgium match had 834,000 live streams from Xfinity customers through Xfinity TV Go and via WatchESPN and beat the previous live streaming record (USA vs. Germany) by 22 percent.

  • The top 5 most-streamed matches of the World Cup by Xfinity TV customers were:

  1. USA vs. Belgium
  2. USA vs. Germany
  3. Argentina vs. Netherlands
  4. Germany vs. Brazil
  5. Argentina vs. Switzerland

Whether it’s the World Cup, Olympics or March Madness, the power of live sports continues to drive consumption, social conversation and multi-platform viewing.  We’ll continue to make it easy for our customers to watch when, where and how they want.