USA’s 5-2 victory over Japan to win the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament garnered a 15.2 overnight rating, destroying both the 8.6 overnight rating for the USA-Japan final in 2011 and blowing past the 13.3 overnight for the USA-China final in 1999.

Update 2: the match averaged a stunning 25.4 million viewers on Fox.

Update: per Fox the match peaked from 8:45-9p with an 18.3/31 rating/share. The top local markets were:

1. Kansas City: 20.6/35

2. St. Louis: 20.5/33

3. San Diego: 19.5/41

4. Denver: 19.4/36

5. Austin: 19.1/37

I’d thought the early blowout would be bad for ratings, but Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand had predicted the opposite:

My guess is that the early 4-0 lead will translate to big ratings for Fox. U.S. fans want tune into coronations. https://t.co/p5ci1ZnpJW — John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) July 6, 2015

Given the record number and the late peak, looks like the John’s theory about coronations was spot on.

Overnight household rating = the live+same day DVR overnight metered-market household rating from the top 56 Nielsen television markets. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) account for about 70% of the US TV-viewing population. The overnight household rating is the percentage of the households that were tuned-in in those markets