World Cup Open Thread

AFP/Sergei Supinsky)

Ukrainian forward Andriy Shevchenko(R)
celebrates with an assistant coach of the
Ukrainian team at the end of their World Cup
2006 group H clash vs Saudi Arabia.
Ukraine won 4-0

Tuesday, June 20, 2006
TIME	HOME		AWAY	MATCH	VENUE
Jun 20 10:00 ET	Costa Rica	v	Poland	Match 34	Hanover
Jun 20 10:00 ET	Ecuador	v	Germany	Match 33	Berlin
Jun 20 15:00 ET	Paraguay	v	Trinidad & Tobago	Match 36	Kaiserslautern
Jun 20 15:00 ET	Sweden	v	England	Match 35	Cologne

Oh man, I'd like to see T&T again. Choices, choices

While golfers struggle, World Cup ratings soar

By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

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The subject of good weeks leads us to the World Cup, which, clearly, means we're not talking about the United States' side. We refer to KXLN's (Ch. 45) Nielsen ratings for the first 17 games on Univision. Fueled by an 8.7 rating and 18 share for the Mexico-Iran game on Sunday, Channel 45 is averaging a 3.2 rating thus far, up 28 percent from four years ago.

Much of the bump, of course, stems from a more favorable European time slot (late mornings and early afternoons in the U.S.) as opposed to the early morning slots from the 2002 games in South Korea.

Still, the Mexico rating was impressive — third-best in the nation, in fact, behind 12.5 in Los Angeles and 9.2 in Miami. English language games, meanwhile, are averaging 1.4 in Houston on KTRK (Ch. 13), ESPN and ESPN 2 in Houston, up from 0.4 in 2002.

Channel 13 had a 2.6/5 rating for the Mexico game, giving a bilingual Houston rating of 11.3.

And that, in turn, segues us into the NBA Finals. Through three games, Channel 13 is averaging an 11.1 rating, which ranks eighth among the 55 major markets. ABC's national average of 7.9 is up from 7.1 last year, but the Mavericks and Heat may have to stretch the series to seven games to beat last year's 8.2 average, which was second-lowest in modern Finals history.