Why U.S. TV viewers fell in love with the 2026 World Cup

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Set us as preferred Fox TV executives knew their telecast of Sunday’s 2026 FIFA World Cup Final would be big.But bigger than every NFL game outside of the Super Bowl, the perennial ratings blockbuster, was not on their radar.“I have to admit that I didn’t see it coming, that we and Telemundo would combine for almost 65 million viewers for the final,” Mike Mulvihill, executive vice president and head of strategy and analytics for Fox Sports.

“That’s beyond what we could have hoped for.”Spain’s World Cup victory over Argentina by a 1-0 score attracted the largest audience for any sports telecast outside of the Super Bowl since the 1994 Winter Olympics when Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding competed in the women’s figure skating short program.The 38.9 million viewers who tuned in on Fox was enough to make the final the most-watched soccer telecast in history.

Telemundo’s coverage set the record for a Spanish language soccer telecast with 23.9 million viewers.It capped a month of massive viewing for the quadrennial tournament.In the United States,128.4 million people watched some portion of the World Cup across Fox’s broadcast network, its cable outlet FS1 and streaming platform Tubi.

The 104 matches averaged a record high 7.7 million viewers, a 116% increase over the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.Spanish language coverage on NBCUniversal’s Telemundo and the Peacock streaming platform combined to average 6.3 million viewers across the 104 matches, up 143% over the 2022 tournament.Ad revenues for the tournament topped $1.2 billion, according to data from Guideline, which tracks media spending.Having the tournament in the U.S.

with games airing in daytime and prime time helped.Mulvihill noted the tournament came up at a fortunate time on the sports viewing calendar.

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