Americans are increasingly developing a taste for the "beautiful game," at least when their own team is playing. 
 
 Monday night's World Cup match between the U.S. and Ghana drew 15.9 million viewers total between the two channels carrying the game, ESPN and Univision, according to preliminary overnight Nielsen ratings. The figure set World Cup viewership records for both networks. 
 
 The ratings trounced the audience for... ||||| Public Bar in Tenleytown. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA) 
 
 Washington is dominating the national English-language television ratings for this World Cup. 
 
 That trend continued on Monday, when the Ghana-USA broadcast on ESPN earned an 11.8 overnight rating in the Washington market, the highest number in the country by quite a bit. New York (10.2), Hartford/New Haven (10.1), Boston (10.0) Columbus (8.9) and Baltimore (8.7) rounded out the top six. 
 
 In both Washington and Baltimore, that was the highest overnight rating ever for a World Cup group-round match, on any network. 
 
 Those ratings do not include the Spanish-language broadcasts. 
 
 Through 14 matches, D.C. leads the way for average World Cup ratings on the ESPN networks. Here’s the top 10 list: 
 
 1) Washington (5.0) 
 
 2) San Francisco (4.4) 
 
 3) New York (4.1) 
 
 4) Boston (3.8) 
 
 5) Orlando (3.7) 
 
 6) Los Angeles (3.7) 
 
 7) Miami (3.7) 
 
 8) Hartford (3.7) 
 
 9) Atlanta (3.6) 
 
 10) Seattle, West Palm Beach, San Diego (3.4, tied) 
 
 And this has been a week-long trend. D.C. had ESPN’s highest local rating for the Brazil-Croatia opener (5.1). It had the highest rating for Chile-Australia (3.8). It had the highest rating for Spain-Netherlands (4.7). D.C. was even tied for third for the Mexico-Cameroon match. 
 
 Washington had just the fifth-highest English-language rating in the country for the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands, behind San Francisco, San Diego, New York and Miami. San Diego was the top local market for English-language broadcasts during the 2006 World Cup. D.C. did not place in the top five that year. 
 
 By way of comparison with the 11.8 rating in D.C. on Monday, the best-rated Caps game in the Ovechkin era earned an 8.63 rating. The best-rated Wizards playoff game this season earned an 8.51 rating. Only one Nats game has ever achieved a rating above 10.0. 
 
 DC leads US in WC ratings, but it’s still a Skins town. USA-Ghana did a combined 14.4 on ESPN/Uni in DC; Skins averaged a 25.8 on 3 nets. — John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) June 17, 2014 
 
 Overall, ESPN’s Ghana vs. USA telecast averaged a 7.0 overnight rating, the highest overnight rating for a men’s World Cup match on ESPN or ESPN2, according to Nielsen. 
 
 Update:
– ESPN and Univision have scored with their World Cup coverage: The US victory over Ghana Monday night set World Cup ratings records for both broadcasters, with a total audience of 15.9 million viewers. For ESPN, it was the highest-rated men's soccer game ever. The ratings were way ahead of the 6 million that watched hockey's Stanley Cup final on Friday night, and weren't that far behind the NBA final between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat, which pulled in 17.9 million viewers, the Wall Street Journal finds. Among English-language viewers, the World Cup so far has the highest average ratings in the Washington, DC, area, with San Francisco, Boston, New York, and Orlando rounding out the top five, the Washington Post reports.