Nearly 63 million Americans watched Spain defeat Argentina in the FIFA World Cup final on Sunday, smashing previous viewership records and highlighting just how far soccer has come in winning over U.S. audiences after years of trying to break into the mainstream.
The championship match was played in New Jersey and remained a scoreless tie until Spain found the back of the net in the 106th minute, claiming a 1-0 win.
Fox’s English-language broadcast was watched by 38.9 million viewers, while Comcast’s Telemundo and its Peacock streaming service accounted for an additional 23.9 million viewers tuning in for Spanish-language coverage, according to both companies. That combined total dwarfs the 22.3 million viewers who caught the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar.
Media analysts said the strong numbers capped an impressive run for the tournament’s broadcast partners. Fox and Comcast paid approximately $485 million and $600 million, respectively, for rights packages that included the World Cup, according to media reports.
Several knockout-stage matches even topped recent championship games in major American sports leagues. The Round of 16 clash between England and Mexico attracted close to 45 million viewers — well above the roughly 27 million who watched Game 7 of the Major League Baseball World Series, when the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays in extra innings, and the nearly 25 million who tuned in for Game 5 of the NBA Finals, where the New York Knicks ended a 53-year championship drought by defeating the San Antonio Spurs.
The numbers still fell short of the nearly 126 million viewers who watched Super Bowl LX, when the Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots. Even so, they represent a meaningful milestone for a sport that has long played second fiddle to American football, basketball, and baseball in the United States.
The tournament was co-hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for the first time, and American fans benefited from prime-time kickoff slots. Interest was also fueled by the possibility that this could be the last World Cup for some of the sport’s biggest names, including Argentina’s Lionel Messi and his longtime Portuguese rival Cristiano Ronaldo.
Fox One, which held the English-language streaming rights in the U.S., recorded 2.8 million new sign-ups in June — its best month since the service launched last August and more than double the 1.1 million sign-ups seen during the NFL Playoffs in January, according to industry tracker Antenna.
Strong viewership among Hispanic audiences also helped drive big numbers for Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo.
“Ratings have blown past internal forecasts for both networks, and it’s not close,” said Vicente Navarro, managing partner at soccer-focused marketing firm GotDigital.
Navarro added that a 30-second advertising spot during knockout-stage matches ran as high as $1 million — more than twice the rate seen during the 2018 World Cup. Major brands that bought ad time included PepsiCo, Home Depot, Anheuser-Busch, and Coca-Cola, according to market intelligence firm SensorTower. For context, a 30-second Super Bowl ad typically costs around $8 million or more.
Beyond the ratings, the tournament generated extra revenue for broadcasters through newly introduced hydration breaks, which divided matches into four segments and opened up additional advertising slots. Some experts noted those extra spots helped broadcasters offset the cost of TV rights while attracting interest from beverage and food companies.
Fox is expected to earn at least $250 million just from advertising during those hydration breaks, according to a June report by The Hollywood Reporter. Telemundo chose not to run ads during those same breaks.
“The new inventory definitely creates more spending for the World Cup,” said Luke Stillman, a managing director at research firm Madison and Wall. “It would be surprising if the structure wasn’t a permanent fixture now going forward, and therefore the broadcast rights are going to be more valuable going forward.”
Questions remain about whether some of the tournament’s more Americanized touches will stick around, including a large halftime show that drew comparisons to the Super Bowl and stretched the typical 15-minute halftime break to 27 minutes.
The next World Cup will be co-hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Morocco in 2030, followed by Saudi Arabia in 2034. Both events are expected to feature kickoff times that are far less convenient for American viewers, which could put a damper on future ratings.
