Fox's boffo weekend; NFL proves it can grow Thanksgiving viewership; and Glazers likely to hold out for record sale price.
Fox's boffo weekend; NFL proves it can grow Thanksgiving viewership; and Glazers likely to hold out for record sale price.
I certainly hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving as we head into the final month of 2022. I also look forward to seeing many industry executives Tuesday at the annual March of Dimes luncheon in New York City. And then we have our Media Innovators Conference on Wednesday and Thursday at the Weston Times Square. Certainly hope to see you at any one of those events this week in New York. And this is your morning Buzz cast for Monday, November 28th. Good morning. I made Mad Core. Thanks for listening to the Buzz Cast. Well, we know the path forward for the US men's team at the World Cup. They must beat Iran on Tuesday if they want to get outta their group and advance to the round of 16, which was the bar many set for this team to show progress and build for the future. The game on Tuesday against Iran has a number of both competitive, athletic, and political storylines attached to it, but US soccer has to feel positive following the draw against England on Friday as it showed a US team that seems to be certainly getting better on the global stage.
And Friday's match delivered big for Fox as it drew more than 15 million viewers by far the most watch match so far of this World Cup in the us, another 4.6 million watch via Tele de Deportes, uh, and on Peacock. The 15 million viewers was shy of the nearly 17 million viewers that watched the men's round of 16 laws to Belgium in 2014. Now for context, the largest English language television audience for soccer in the United States is still 25 million. That's the number who watched the 2015 Women's World Cup final on Fox. But overall, a very good number for Fox so far could get better, should get better on Tuesday. Overall, the World Cup still has its political undertones, but it's drawing fans on the ground in qar. As on Saturday, more than 89,000 fans watch Argentina beat Mexico that marked the biggest crowd for a World Cup match since 91,000 watched the 94 final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
Speaking of Argentina, the Lionel Messy watch continues in the United States as a report out of London surfaced on Sunday that messy is close to a deal to join inter my now such a move has been speculated for some time and messy would surely be a shot in the arm for interest in Major League soccer. So a lot of soccer storylines unfolding today and all this week. Let's move on. Boy does the NFL own Thanksgiving or what? Just a massive day for the league on Thanksgiving. Thursday, all three games delivered strong audiences, but that late afternoon Giants Cowboys game on Fox Mark the NFL's best regular season game audience on record and help fuel the league's best Thanksgiving viewership ever. So just think about these numbers. We are seeing Fox Drew 42 million viewers for that. Cowboys win over the Giants in that four 30 window that passes a Monday night football viewership record from 1990 as the League's best regular season game audience on record and they go back to 1988.
So again, the strength of the NFL is unbelievable right now. CBS also had a strong audience for Bill Lyons that drew 31.5 million viewers. And of course that game came down to the very end. That's the NFL's best early Thanksgiving game on record. And then on Thursday night, NBC averaged nearly 26 million viewers for the Vikings win over the Patriots in primetime. That's the second best primetime Thanksgiving audience since the window began in 2006. So add it all up. And what does it mean for the three games NFL average 33.5 million viewers, the best Thanksgiving average yet for the league? Those are just unbelievable numbers and they continue to grow and we are seeing such great strength around sports programming. And I can't really stress this enough. We are seeing some major significant trends in sports viewership. And let's keep talking about Fox's big week because it continued on Saturday as Michigan's win over Ohio State drew 17 million viewers and that's the highest rated regular season college football game in 11 years on any network.
So do you think Eric Shanks and the leadership of Fox had a great weekend or what? Just look at their numbers starting on Thursday, Friday with the World Cup, Saturday with the game. And I'm sure the numbers on NFL Sunday will be strong as well, but a very, very strong viewership trend here for sports programming. Let's continue around sports deals because talks around the sale of Manchester United continue reports over the weekend had the Lazer family only taking offers that would make any sale the most expensive deal for a sports team ever. So Forbes has pegged the value at Manchester United at 4.59 billion. The Glazers are reportedly hoping to land a deal at more than 7.2 billion. Remember earlier this year Chelsea won for 3 billion. The Broncos sold for 4.65 billion. And I believe you're gonna hear groups from Saudi Arabia and Qatar very interested in buying Manchester, United or Liverpool because the interest in those teams and those brands is immense and those values are huge and the price tags on those teams will be big.
And let's end with this. A sport we continue to talk about, and I haven't seen much slowing down is momentum around Formula One and ESPN continues to set record audience numbers for the sport this year. It achieved its first season with an average of more than a million viewers per race as F1 races average 1.2 million viewers across espn, ESPN two and abc. That's up nearly 30% over last year. Remember, we have seen double digit growth among Formula One races over the last few years, including significant increases in female viewership. This year alone, the average female viewership audience was up 34% and women viewers make up 28% of the overall viewership audience this year. And there was also a big increase, nearly 30% in the targeted 18 to 49 year old demographic. So what does that mean? It means that the Formula One audience continues to grow, it's getting more diverse and it's getting younger. Any league, any property would love to see those trend lines. So just an amazing run here we're seeing of interest and consumption of sports programming across the board. So that is your morning buzz cast for Monday, November 28th. I made Mad Core. Thanks for listening to the Buzz. I'm in New York pretty much the rest of the week. David Albright will bring you the buzz cast Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I should be back on Friday until I speak to you again. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you later in the week.