ESPN Breaks Record as Fans Watch Instead of WorkingLinear viewership lags behind Ghana, Portugal matches, digital soars

ESPN metered market numbers for yesterday's 12 p.m. match between the U.S. and Germany got a 6.3 rating, including an hour of pregame starting at 11 a.m. That's great, considering the game kicked off in the middle of a day and much of the viewership would have been in workplaces.

Indeed, the sports network's digital platform, WatchESPN, got so many concurrent viewers—a peak of 1.7 million, which breaks the platform's record—that the digital edition of the game sputtered and died for quite a few folks who wanted to contribute to that number. Still, that's more peak concurrents than the Super Bowl. Viewership on Univision's digital platform peaked around 750,000.

Fast nationals for ESPN and overnights for Univision are not yet available, but the digital explosion suggests that networks and digital video providers can ill afford to buy data that doesn't include advertisements delivered in the workplace. Whether people are watching on their lunch breaks or surreptitiously in a tiny window when the boss isn't looking, it's become clear that if you're sitting in front of a computer all day with what is probably a faster Internet connection than you've got at home, you're going to watch TV.http://www.adweek.com/news/television/espn-world-cup-preliminary-ratings-show-workplace-viewership-158623?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=AWK_TodayTV&utm_campaign=Adweek%20Newsletter%20Template%20-%20TV%20Today%20-%20July%2012