Personal anecdotes are of course lovely, but for example in 2010 the 3rd place match had the 14th highest audience of that tournament, higher than 2 of the quarter-final games and 4 of the group of 16 games.
This is from what I've understood pretty typical. Sure, it's not the biggest game of the tournament, but still up there with the playoff rounds. 200+ million viewers is nothing to sneeze at.
Whether or not people "care" is impossible to say decisively. The German and Uruguay players absolutely looked like they cared in that game. Just like the Germans and the Portuguese looked like they cared in 2006, and the Turkish and the Koreans looked like they cared in 2002.
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