Coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Fox and Telemundo became the ratings smash of the summer.
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. The NBA Finals were over and Major League Baseball’s post-season and the NFL season are months away.
But even with that soft competition for sports fans’ attention, the World Cup demonstrated an ability to bring in viewers who don’t follow the sport. Fox data showed 53% of viewers who tuned into its coverage had not watched any soccer in the past year. The network’s research found that a majority of U.S. sports fans could name only two stars, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and their home countries.
What brought the audience in? Mulvihill credits social media, which tends to be an angry place during big sporting events. The lead up to the World Cup was no different, but the doom and gloom went away once the action began.
“There was a lot of negativity around this tournament on social as there always is about everything related to the cost of tickets and related to challenges that foreign visitors might face coming to the U.S.,” Mulvihill noted. “As soon as the ball was kicked, and the matches were in progress, that just completely pivoted to overwhelming positivity.”
Patrick Rishe, director of the sports business program at Washington University in St. Louis, said the global reach of social media made the international stars accessible to U.S. fans and created a “fear of missing out” effect that likely drove them to watch.
“There is a communal aspect of soccer, in particular, where you can be in a room with people wearing 10 different colored jerseys, and they all just kind of get into the camaraderie of it, and the highs and lows of it, and the drama of it,” Rishe said. “So even if you don’t have rooting interests, it’s just fun to be a part of it.”
The appeal of communal viewing showed up in the Nielsen data. Out-of-home viewing accounted for 27% of the audience. For Sunday’s final, the figure was 35%
People were having viewing parties or gatherings at home as well. An average of 1.955 viewers per home watched the World Cup. The figure for last year’s regular season NFL games was 1.685 viewers.
The question going forward is whether the World Cup will spur more interest in soccer in the U.S. Major League Soccer has reportedly seen significant increases in ticket sales. The league, which has most of its matches on Apple TV, launched an ad campaign with the tagline, “Thanks World, We’ll Take It From Here.”
Versant acquired the rights to carry 300 Bundesliga matches. The company’s USA Network will carry at least 30 matches from the German domestic league, with the rest streaming on the company’s free Fandango platform. The league was previously available on ESPN’s streaming service, which required a subscription.
Telemundo acquired the Spanish-language TV rights to the Union of European Football Assns. men’s club competitions, including the Champions League.
Fox paid $485 million for the rights to the 2026 World Cup, while Telemundo shelled out $600 million for the Spanish-language telecasts.
But the real prize is the rights for the 2030 World Cup, which both TV networks and streamers are expected to vigorously pursue, even though the time zones will not be as hospitable to the U.S. (The host countries are Morocco, Portugal, and Spain.)
During a recent appearance at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit in New York, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro made it clear where he stands.
“Of course we’re interested,” Pitaro said. “This has been a juggernaut. We’re not at all surprised by it.”