Record of La 2 Cat with the final, but four out of five Catalans opt for La 1

Luck has accompanied the Spanish national team to their second World Cup, and none other than RTVE has benefited from this, having spent 55 million to acquire the rights to the competition in open broadcast and being able to milk them until this Sunday's final. Spain's match against Argentina became the second most-watched broadcast in Spain in television history, with an average of 15.7 million viewers and an 87.1% share (behind the penalty shootout in Spain-Portugal of Euro 2012, which had 18.1 million viewers).

In Catalonia, the viewership was well below the global average, at 86.3%. La 1 was the one that took the bulk of this audience, with 60.8% and an average of 1,770,000 viewers (and 63.9% and 1,987,000 during extra time). La 2 Cat, which offered a broadcast in Catalan, had to settle for 14.5% and 426,000 viewers (15.3% and 477,000 during extra time). But, even though only one in five viewers opted for the Catalan broadcast, the figure represents its best performance since it launched at the start of the academic year and allows it to end the day as the second most-watched television channel, with 8.6% and a comfortable margin ahead of TV3, which could not get past 5.5%. La 1 was the leader with 40.3%.

With this data, La 1 is the most watched channel with 18.1% this July and has twelve days – without the World Cup – to try and lower the average as much as possible if it wants to thus break TV3's uninterrupted leadership for the last 23 months. For now, the Generalitat channel has registered 11.4% in the first 19 days of July.

Madrid was the autonomous community that registered the highest match attendance, with 92%, which means it surpassed the state average of 87.1% by almost five points. Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Murcia, and the Valencian Community recorded shares above average. On the other hand, the Asturians were the least enthusiastic about the final: they only saw it - with many caveats this only– 77.4%.

A glance at the profiles shows that, contrary to popular belief, football is a more elite sport than it might seem. The audiences can be divided into three categories according to socioeconomic status. Among those with higher incomes, the match (including overtime) achieved a 92% share, while among households of a more modest socioeconomic level, the share remained at 77.3%.

By age, young people dominate: the group that embraced it the most was the 13-24 year olds (95.2%), while among those over 65 the share remained at 75.9%. By gender, there is still an eight-point difference between the data for men (91.1%) and women (83.1%).