Mexico-Iran World Cup Match Scores Record Ratings

Sunday's face-off between Mexico and Iran in the third day of the 2006 FIFA World Cup was the most-watched sporting event in U.S. Spanish-language television history, according to Univision, which holds the exclusive Spanish-language broadcast rights to the games in the United States.

The match, in which Mexico beat Iran 3-1, attracted an average audience of 5.4 million people ages two and over, said a Univision statement ciiting figures from Nielsen Media's NTI Fast National Ratings.

The network said the first eight games of the World Cup tournament have generated an average audience of 2.6 million people — 1.7 million more people than watched the first eight games of the 2002 World Cup tournament in Korea/Japan.

Among adults 18 to 49, the audience averaged 1.7 million viewers per game, also nearly tripling the audience from the 2002 tournament, said Univision.

In addition to this year's World Cup, Univision Communications secured the exclusive Spanish-language television rights to broadcast the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer tournaments for $325 million.