English soccer's top-tier Premier League match between Liverpool and Arsenal on December 23, 2023, has become the most-watched English-language Premier League broadcast in the US.
The game, broadcast in English across NBCUniversal’s NBC and NBC Sports channels, as well as its Peacock streaming service, attracted 1.96 million viewers, more than any English-language broadcast in the US.
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The high viewership means that all of the top five most-watched English-language Premier League broadcasts in US history have occurred in 2023, and all have been on NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast.
Three of these top-five fixtures, including the December 23 Liverpool vs Arsenal meeting, have featured Arsenal, while two have featured Liverpool.
When incorporating Spanish-language broadcast viewership from NBC’s Spanish-language channel Telemundo, the match drew 2.28 million total viewers, which puts it second in all-language Premier League broadcast history behind the January 22, 2023, meeting between Arsenal and Manchester United, which drew 2.31 million total viewers, but fewer English language viewers.
On the Peacock service, the game drew an average minute audience of 464,000, below the 509,000 posted by Liverpool vs Manchester United game on December 17, but still the second-most streamed match of the 2023-24 season.
The popularity of the Premier League in 2023 in the US speaks to the strong growth of the league in the country.
NBC spent a massive $2.7 billion in 2021 to purchase the rights to the Premier League through to 2028 and is deeply tied up with the league beyond the broadcast deal.
In June, it was announced that the Premier League had joined a partner consortium for a sports technology accelerator program being run by NBCUniversal.
The EPL has been appointed to the partner consortium as a strategic advisor “to the startups selected for the annual program.”
In addition to advising these startups, the EPL will be able to involve itself in selecting startups for the next and fourth editions of the program (it is currently midway through a third).
