Cristiano Ronaldo made his Juventus debut in a thrilling 3-2 win over Chievo and a whole lot of people tuned into see the five-time Ballon d'Or winner in Serie A for the first time over the weekend.
CR7 was unable to get off the mark for the Bianconeri but viewing figures for Sky Italia's coverage show the monumental impact he is already having - with a 68 per cent increase on the numbers for last season's opening game between Juventus and Cagliari.
According to Gazzetta dello Sport, via Football Italia, 2,330,234 unique viewers tuned in to see the £99 million man play 90 minutes on Saturday, making Ronaldo's debut the fourth-highest viewed programme on Sky's Italian brand.
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Only two derby Derby d'Italia clashes, in 2013 and 2016, and Roma's visit of Juventus in 2015 are ahead of Chievo-Juventus when it comes to Sky Italia's audience numbers.
It just goes to show how much of a draw the 33-year old is - and you just know these type of numbers will continue across the season thanks to his big-money arrival.
He's already played a central role in Juventus' social media channels seeing some quite remarkable growth, while Real Madrid's attendance against Getafe suffered following his departure from the Santiago Bernabeu.
The 13-time European champions had just 48,466 fans in the house for their opening game in La Liga, and though part of the reason is because of the later kick-off time - a key factor in Los Blancos recording their worst attendance for nine years has a lot to do with the lack of presence of a certain Portuguese talisman.
Topics: Football News, Football, Serie A, Juventus, Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid
