U.S. Women's World Cup tie vs. Netherlands draws combined ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The United States’ 1-1 draw against the Netherlands in the Women’s World Cup drew 7.93 million viewers, making it the largest combined English- and Spanish-language audience for a group stage match involving the American women.

The first U.S. match on Friday night against Vietnam had a combined audience of 6.26 million.

The game on Thursday afternoon in Wellington, New Zealand, which kicked off at 9 p.m. EDT Wednesday night, averaged 6,429,000 viewers on Fox, making it the most-watched group stage telecast since Fox started covering it in 2015. Fox and Nielsen said the audience peaked at 8.45 million for the final 15 minutes.

The previous U.S. English-language Women’s World Cup group stage mark was 5,337,000 in 2019 for a game against Chile.

Wednesday night’s match ranks seventh in most viewers for a Women’s World Cup match on Fox, ABC or ESPN. It is the third most-watched, non-final, surpassed only by the 2015 and 2019 U.S. semifinal matches.

The Spanish-language audience of 1.51 million across Telemundo, Peacock, Universo and Telemundo streaming platforms was the second-largest Women’s World Cup audience regardless of round. It was just shy of the 1.55 million that viewed the 2019 final, which was also between the Americans and the Dutch.

Telemundo is a division of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal.

Ratings for the next U.S. match on Tuesday against Portugal are likely to show a marked decrease because it will kick off at 3 a.m. EDT.

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports