Women's World Cup final seen by record 26.7 million in US 
 
 The United States women's soccer team are World Cup champions again after 16 years. 
 
 NEW YORK -- The United States' win over Japan in the Women's World Cup final was the most viewed soccer game in the history of American television. 
 
 The 5-2 victory Sunday, which gave the Americans a record third title, was seen by 26.7 million viewers. 
 
 Fox said Monday its English-language coverage drew a 12.9 rating was seen by an average of 25.4 million, and NBC's Telemundo said its telecast averaged 1.27 million. The audience peaked at 30.9 million from 8:30-8:45 p.m. as the game neared its end, and 43.2 million tuned into some portion of the match. 
 
 Average viewership topped the previous mark of 26.5 million set when Germany beat Argentina in last year's men's World Cup final. That was seen by 17.3 million on ABC and 9.2 million on Spanish-language Univision. 
 
 Fox's viewership set a U.S. English-language record for soccer, topping the 18.22 million tuned to ESPN for the 2-2 draw between the American men and Portugal in the group stage on June 22 last year. 
 
 The previous high for a women's match was 17,975,000 on ABC for the United States' penalty kicks win over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup final. 
 
 Fox's viewership for this year's final at Vancouver, British Columbia, which started at 7 p.m. EDT, was nearly double the 13,458,000 that watched Japan's penalty-kicks win over the United States in the 2011 final. That game, played in Frankfurt, Germany, started at 2:45 p.m. EDT. 
 
 Fox's audience for the final exceeded the viewers for San Francisco's win over Kansas City in Game 7 of last year's World Series on Fox (23.5 million), Golden State's NBA title-winning victory over Cleveland last month on ABC (23,254,000) and Chicago's Stanley Cup-winning victory in Game 6 over Tampa Bay last month on NBC (8,005,000). 
 
 It was the highest for any U.S. broadcast since an average of 28.3 million saw Duke beat Wisconsin on CBS to win the NCAA men's basketball title in April. 
 
 The 52 World Cup matches on Fox, Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 averaged 1,824,000, a 21 percent increase from the average of 1,511,000 for the 32 games of the 2011 tournament on ESPN and ESPN2. 
 
 St. Louis had the highest average for the seven U.S. matches at 8.0, followed by Kansas City (7.5), Washington, D.C. (7.3), Austin, Texas (6.6), San Diego (6.4), Richmond, Virginia (6.2), and Denver and Baltimore (6.1). 
 
 An average of 232,000 unique streamers watched the final on Fox Sports Go, a record for the app. 
 
 In the weekend's other big soccer match, Chile's penalty-kicks win over Argentina in the finale of the Copa America tournament was viewed by 1.46 million in the United States: 464,000 on beIN Sports and 1 million on beIN Sports en Espanol. ||||| Public Bar in Tenleytown. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA) 
 
 Washington is dominating the national English-language television ratings for this World Cup. 
 
 That trend continued on Monday, when the Ghana-USA broadcast on ESPN earned an 11.8 overnight rating in the Washington market, the highest number in the country by quite a bit. New York (10.2), Hartford/New Haven (10.1), Boston (10.0) Columbus (8.9) and Baltimore (8.7) rounded out the top six. 
 
 In both Washington and Baltimore, that was the highest overnight rating ever for a World Cup group-round match, on any network. 
 
 Those ratings do not include the Spanish-language broadcasts. 
 
 Through 14 matches, D.C. leads the way for average World Cup ratings on the ESPN networks. Here’s the top 10 list: 
 
 1) Washington (5.0) 
 
 2) San Francisco (4.4) 
 
 3) New York (4.1) 
 
 4) Boston (3.8) 
 
 5) Orlando (3.7) 
 
 6) Los Angeles (3.7) 
 
 7) Miami (3.7) 
 
 8) Hartford (3.7) 
 
 9) Atlanta (3.6) 
 
 10) Seattle, West Palm Beach, San Diego (3.4, tied) 
 
 And this has been a week-long trend. D.C. had ESPN’s highest local rating for the Brazil-Croatia opener (5.1). It had the highest rating for Chile-Australia (3.8). It had the highest rating for Spain-Netherlands (4.7). D.C. was even tied for third for the Mexico-Cameroon match. 
 
 Washington had just the fifth-highest English-language rating in the country for the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands, behind San Francisco, San Diego, New York and Miami. San Diego was the top local market for English-language broadcasts during the 2006 World Cup. D.C. did not place in the top five that year. 
 
 By way of comparison with the 11.8 rating in D.C. on Monday, the best-rated Caps game in the Ovechkin era earned an 8.63 rating. The best-rated Wizards playoff game this season earned an 8.51 rating. Only one Nats game has ever achieved a rating above 10.0. 
 
 DC leads US in WC ratings, but it’s still a Skins town. USA-Ghana did a combined 14.4 on ESPN/Uni in DC; Skins averaged a 25.8 on 3 nets. — John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) June 17, 2014 
 
 Overall, ESPN’s Ghana vs. USA telecast averaged a 7.0 overnight rating, the highest overnight rating for a men’s World Cup match on ESPN or ESPN2, according to Nielsen. 
 
 Update: ||||| Americans are increasingly developing a taste for the "beautiful game," at least when their own team is playing. 
 
 Monday night's World Cup match between the U.S. and Ghana drew 15.9 million viewers total between the two channels carrying the game, ESPN and Univision, according to preliminary overnight Nielsen ratings. The figure set World Cup viewership records for both networks. 
 
 The ratings trounced the audience for...
– ESPN and Univision have scored with their World Cup coverage: The US victory over Ghana Monday night set World Cup ratings records for both broadcasters, with a total audience of 15.9 million viewers. For ESPN, it was the highest-rated men's soccer game ever. The ratings were way ahead of the 6 million that watched hockey's Stanley Cup final on Friday night, and weren't that far behind the NBA final between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat, which pulled in 17.9 million viewers, the Wall Street Journal finds. Among English-language viewers, the World Cup so far has the highest average ratings in the Washington, DC, area, with San Francisco, Boston, New York, and Orlando rounding out the top five, the Washington Post reports.