Amol Sharma of The Wall Street Journal provided further context for just how compelled U.S. viewers were to watch their side face Portugal, as did Sports Business Journal's John Ourand:

Amol Sharma        ✔ @asharma

USA-Portugal match averaged a whopping 18.2 million viewers on ESPN, more than the 17.9 million who watched Game Five of the NBA Finals.

3:02 PM - 23 Jun 2014

John Ourand @Ourand_SBJ

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ESPN says USA-Portugal is the United States' most-watched soccer match in history, eclipsing the 1999 Women’s World Cup final on ABC.

2:51 PM - 23 Jun 2014

It beat the NBA finals!

That's amazing: https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/481069326469189632

A whopping 9.1 rating on a Sunday afternoon!

1200 Reddit comments:

http://reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/28vfye/usportugal_scores_91_rating_highest_world_cup/

Imagine if we advance to the knockout round...

Klinsmann: "The U.S. is known to give all they have in every single game, otherwise Mexico wouldn’t be here."

700 Reddit comments:

http://reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/28vv80/klinsmann_the_us_is_known_to_give_all_they_have/