• by Wayne Friedman , June 28, 2010

Nielsen confirmed that final ratings of Saturday's USA-Ghana soccer match make it the most-viewed TV soccer game in U.S. history -- breaking a 16-year-old record.

The game -- in which the USA men's team won its group and got into the round of 16 -- posted 19.4 million viewers when combining results from ABC and Univision. This bested the Brazil-Italy World Cup final that was seen by 18.1 million viewers in 1994 -- which also combined viewership from ABC and Univision.

Saturday's game also went above the 1999 World Cup final game featuring the USA women's soccer team vs. China, which earned 18.0 million viewers and ran only on ABC.

On Sunday, TV went back to its more mundane summer viewing levels. There were two new scripted shows on ABC, which debuted the Sunday before, moving to dramatically lower ratings levels.

Both "Scoundrels" and "The Gates" -- which aired at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., respectively -- each dropped around 20% to 30% to land at a Nielsen preliminary 1.1 rating/3 share among 18-49 viewers.

This was the same number CBS earned for a two-hour special of the "37th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards" -- a 1.1/3, running from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sad as it sounds, this was good news for this annual awards event, with ratings almost double the number the event had a year ago when airing on CBS' sister network CW.

Only one show made it above the 2 rating mark for 18-49 viewers: A rerun of Fox's "Family Guy" hit a 2.2/6.

All this gave Fox the overall victory for the night: a 1.4/5. All other networks were either just over the 1 rating mark or just below it for the night: ABC with a 1.1/3; NBC at a 1.1/3; CBS with a 1.0/3; and Univision at a 0.7/2.