Telemundo's Miguel Lorenzo Talks World Cup Success, Streaming

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**Carol Massar** (0:07)
Hard to believe, the World Cup, wrapping up this weekend. I kind of can't get my head around it.

**Emily Graffeo** (0:12)
Who are you rooting for? Are you allowed to say?

**Carol Massar** (0:17)
No, I'm not gonna say. Sebastian, who should I be rooting for?
Spain.

**Emily Graffeo** (0:22)
Give Spain a chance.

**Carol Massar** (0:23)
Okay, give Spain a chance.

**Emily Graffeo** (0:26)
You already won just recently.

**Carol Massar** (0:27)
Well, I have to say, it's been fun to be around the newsroom. People are watching everywhere. They're watching their phones, streaming networks, you name it. And as AP reports, every match of the tournament has been available for US viewers in English, on Fox or FS1 or Telemundo or Universo in Spanish. And there are streaming options such as Fox One or Peacock. And what caught our attention from this AP story, thank you, Sebastian, for pointing it out for us, that the American Spanish language TV network owned by NBCUniversal, we're talking about Telemundo, points to Nielsen ratings to show that roughly half the World Cup viewers in the United States have watched at least some portion of some matches in Spanish. We wanted to know more. So joining us to talk about it is Miguel Lorenzo. He's Senior Vice President of Sports Content at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. He joins us from New Jersey. Also with us is our Vanessa Perdomo Maglion. She is Bloomberg News Sports Business Reporter, co-host of the Business of Sports podcast. She joins us right here in our studio.
Welcome, welcome, Miguel. Great to have you here. Sounds like it's been a great run this round of the World Cup. Tell us about the ratings, who's watching and how do you know that roughly half of the World Cup viewers in the US have watched at least some portion of some matches in Spanish. Talk to us about that.

**Miguel Lorenzo** (1:45)
Sure. Well, thank you for having me.
The audience in this World Cup has been an amazing story. I think it speaks to many things. It speaks to certainly Telemundo and Peacock's coverage of the World Cup across many different platforms. I think it also speaks to the World Cup tournament itself, whether it's the expanded field, where there's more teams and there's more games.
The legends like Messi and Ronaldo, the stars of the World Cup. We can't discount the fact that it's a World Cup taking place in our backyard, in our communities. A World Cup that is a world away is still interesting to all audiences of soccer, but when it's taking place in your country, it's hard to replicate that excitement, knowing that whether there's matches in your city, in your communities, watch parties, it's another level to it that we haven't seen since the last World Cup here in 1994 And certainly, whether it's on social media or through our coverage, the response from audiences with these matches have been amazing.

**Vanessa Perdomo** (2:47)
Miguel, obviously, one of the things we can't ignore when we're talking about Telemundo is the iconic voice of Andres Cantor. I mean, everyone knows that.

**Miguel Lorenzo** (2:57)
Goal!

**Vanessa Perdomo** (3:00)
Everyone knows what that is and everyone knows from. Do you think that's one of the reasons why people are so invested to tune in to Telemundo, because even people who don't speak Spanish are tuning in?

**Miguel Lorenzo** (3:11)
Absolutely, you know, Hispanics are about 20% of the US population.
Yet, as you mentioned, nearly half of the World Cup audience in the United States has been on Telemundo and Peacock. And so the excitement and the passion that our talent and that our production brings, Andres Cantor certainly being one of them, it's certainly one of the reasons why audiences are watching on Telemundo. You know, Andres is a very important part of it. And certainly, you know, his calls of these various Argentina comebacks have been very viral.

**Vanessa Perdomo** (3:44)
But the last one, he almost lost his voice.

**Miguel Lorenzo** (3:47)
I love that. He needs to really make sure he's taking care of his, you know, drink some honey and some lemon. We got to save you. There's a lot of games to go through.
But, you know, it's been him. It's been other talent on the team. I mean, we've had some major names join our team, whether it's Andres Guardado, Carlos Salcillo. These are big names with the Mexican national team that have played with that team. And we saw when Mexico beat Ecuador, the Mexican team came over and started throwing them up into the air in celebration. So there've been so many great moments like this. Maxi Rodriguez is another one. Messi has given him like a celebratory hug before every game. It's worked out. It's been good luck, because obviously Argentina has made it this far. So when you look at all of our talent and all the excitement that they bring and the passion into that coverage, and that's not just during the game, but everything before and after and everything happening across our platforms, it's no surprise to us that audiences are gravitating towards our coverage and watching these matches on Telemundo.