The Mario Balotelli Cup, or last year’s champion Manchester City versus last year’s runner-up Liverpool, #1 vs #2 in 2013-14 was extremely popular online and yet another example of how the English Premier League is really taking off worldwide. NBC Sports bringing it to the American audience is paying off big dividends as the game continues to grow.
Yesterday’s Manchester City – Liverpool match, a 3-1 victory for Man City, set an NBC Sports Live Extra record for the Premier League with more than 4.3 million minutes live streamed.
The match averaged 469,000 viewers on NBCSN – up 45% from NBCSN’s average Monday afternoon viewership in August-September 2013.
Paul M. Banks owns and operates The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports, Yahoo! and the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world and been featured in hundreds of media outlets including NFL Network, Fox Sports 1 and ESPN2. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)