NBCSN drew big ratings for Monday’s Chelsea-Manchester United showdown

A goalless draw between Manchester United and Chelsea on Monday proved a hit with American viewers.

The Blues and the Red Devils played to 536,000 viewers on Monday, a huge audience for EPL in the states. Only one “early-season” game (as in pre-December) in league history has ever draw a bigger audience in the U.S.: Manchester United vs. Fulham, which drew 540,000 viewers in August of 2011. Viewership peaked at 682,000 viewers from 4:30-4:45 p.m. ET. It was NBCSN’s biggest weekday afternoon audience since the 2012 Olympics.

Among younger viewers, soccer was king on Monday. On a day with U.S. Open tennis and Major League Baseball, Man U-Chelsea drew 147,000 viewers among Adults 18-49. ESPN’s Reds-Cardinals MLB telecast came in second, but the soccer match beat it by 18 percent (125,000).

Many viewers tuned into the game online, via NBC Sports’ Live Extra app. The metric for streaming at this point is in minutes streamed, and Man U-Chelsea produced 3.2 million minutes. The only NBCSN event in NBC Sports Live Extra history that has produced higher streaming rates is Game 2 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Final. It also topped the streaming numbers for both of NBC’s NFL pre-season telecasts.

With the huge lead-in, NBCSN’s The Crossover scored its highest viewership since June, with 125,000 viewers. That was an easy victory over Fox Sports 1’s Crowd Goes Wild, which scored only 53,000 viewers. At 5:30 p.m. ET, Pro Football Talk drew 78,000 viewers, which beat Fox Football Daily on FS1 at 6 p.m. ET with 69,000 viewers.