Fox Sports capped off a historic week for soccer television ratings when Argentina’s dramatic 2-1 semifinal victory over England on Wednesday became the most-watched World Cup semifinal ever broadcast in the English language, according to Variety.
The match pulled in an average of 15.063 million viewers on Fox, easily surpassing the record set just 24 hours earlier when Spain blanked France 2-0 in Tuesday’s semifinal, which had averaged 11.462 million viewers.
The matchup in Atlanta — featuring Argentina’s global superstar Lionel Messi going head-to-head with England’s star striker Harry Kane — hit a peak audience of 22.177 million viewers between 4:45 and 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
To put those numbers in perspective, Fox averaged just 6.531 million viewers across the two 2022 World Cup semifinals. The previous English-language record for a World Cup semifinal was 6.595 million viewers, set during the France-Morocco match in December 2022 in Qatar.
Across the Atlantic, the numbers were equally staggering. Radio Times reported that Wednesday’s England match was the most-watched live television broadcast in the United Kingdom so far in 2026, peaking at 24 million viewers — representing 85% of all TV viewing at that moment — and averaging 22.1 million on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
The match surpassed England’s quarterfinal win over Norway on ITV1, which peaked at 16.8 million viewers based on overnight figures. It also marked the BBC’s largest live audience since England fell to Italy in the Euro 2020 final back in 2021.
Looking ahead, defending World Cup champion Argentina will take on European champion Spain in the tournament final this Sunday in East Rutherford, N.J. England and France will square off Saturday in the third-place match in Miami Gardens, Fla.
