Oxford United’s Emirates FA Cup replay against Newcastle United on Tuesday peaked at an astonishing 4.8 million viewers when it was broadcast live on BBC One.
The U’s produced a dramatic comeback against the Premier League side to bring the game back to 2-2 and send the game into extra time, with an average of 3.5million viewers watching and a peak of 4.8 million viewers over the 120 minutes.
When put into context, these figures exceeded all Premier League games shown on TV this season with Liverpool’s 2-0 victory over Manchester United on 19th January 2020 coming closest with a peak of 4.0 million.
Those figures don't do justice to the number of people following the U's, with TV crews from ITV and overseas TV stations, live TV interviews on BBC South plus pre match interviews from SKY, live commentary on Talk Sport and Five Live and coverage in every national newspaper it means United have caught the eye of so many people this week.
Managing Director Niall McWilliams told us:
“It’s great to see so many people tuning in to watch Oxford United and being able to showcase the club on the biggest stage possible. To see the viewing figures exceed all Premier League games this season is fantastic and we are proud to see an audience of that scale watching Tuesday’s game. Commercially it meant our partners were literally seen by millions of people.”