The U.S. Women’s National Team, driven by a tenacious defense that has posted five straight shutouts and not allowed a goal in 513 minutes, out-flanked top-ranked Germany, 2-0, last night in Montreal, Quebec, to return to the final of the FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP™ for what is sure to be a star-spangled showdown against the winner of tonight’s England-Japan semifinal, on Sunday, July 5. The upward audience trend witnessed at each advancing stage throughout the quadrennial tournament continued as FOX set yet another record for soccer on the network, with an average audience of 8.4 million viewers, according to fast nationals issued today by Nielsen.

USA-Germany semifinal highlights:

– The match’s 8.4 million viewers breaks the recent mark set June 26 for the USA-China quarterfinal match (5.7 million) by 47%.

– The 2015 USA-Germany semifinal is now the third most-watched women’s soccer match of all time, trailing only the USA-China 1999 Women’s World Cup Final (17,975,000) and the Japan-USA 2011 Women’s World Cup Final (13,458,000), dropping USA-China 2015 quarterfinal to fourth, followed by USA-Nigeria 2015 Group Stage (5.0 million, fifth place), Brazil-USA 1999 Women’s World Cup Semifinal (4.9 million, sixth), USA-Sweden 2015 Women’s World Cup Group Stage (4.5 million, seventh).

– The audience for USA-China on FOX (8.4 million) is +147% better than the audience for the USA’s semifinal match in 2011 vs. France on ESPN (3.4 million).

– USA-Germany is the most-watched World Cup semifinal match – men’s or women’s -ever in the U.S., breaking the mark set for the Germany-Italy 2006 World Cup semifinal (5.9 million).

– The audience began at 1.6 million viewers at 6:41 PM ET and peaked at a tournament-high 12.1 million from 8:30-8:45 PM ET. The previous peak audience for the tournament was 8.1 million, reached during the USA-China quarterfinal. The peak for USA-Germany beat the prior peak by +49% (12.1 million vs. 8.1 million).

– FOX Sports GO recorded a record 166,000 unique streamers. This was the largest authenticated streaming audience in FOX Sports GO history, besting the previous mark set by the USA vs. Colombia round of 16 match (121,000 unique streamers).

– USA-Germany is the most-watched broadcast on FOX since the April 1 edition of AMERICAN IDOL.

– The match provided FOX broadcast network its highest-rated program among Adults 18-49 (3.0) since the season finale of EMPIRE on 3/18/15.

– Top markets for USA vs. Germany: Kansas City and St. Louis (9.3), followed by Washington D.C. (9.0), Austin (7.8), Cincinnati and Columbus (7.4), Boston (7.1), Detroit (7.0), San Diego (6.9), and New York (6.8). The ratings in Kansas City and St. Louis for USA-Germany tie for the highest of any individual market in this tournament. The previous high was 7.8 set by Kansas City for USA-China in the Quarterfinal.

FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2015™ summary:

– The six USA matches on FOX and FOX Sports 1 have averaged 5.3 million viewers, +121% better than the 2011 tournament average through the semifinals (2.4 million) on ESPN.

– The four USA matches on FOX have averaged a 3.3 HH rating, with 6.0 million viewers. In the Adult 18-49 demo, the four matches averaged a 2.1 rating, which would place it in a tie for second for prime time programs in the summer season.

– The 2015 tournament is averaging 1.306 million viewers per match across all networks (FOX, FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2), +45% over 899,000 averaged on ESPN and ESPN2 through the first semifinal in 2011.

– Top markets for all six USA matches: St. Louis (6.0), Washington D.C. (5.6), Kansas City (5.4), Austin (4.7), Richmond (4.6), Baltimore (4.5), New York (4.4), Hartford, Milwaukee and Norfolk (4.3).