Viewership records were shattered throughout the FIFA World Cup. Will Sunday’s final be an exception?
It cannot be said enough that television ratings are not everything. In judging the performance of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, or the health and future of soccer, the ratings are just one data point. With that said, as far as data points go, this year’s World Cup ratings are particularly compelling. Even the highest expectations going into this year’s tournament would seem to have fallen short of reality, and while almost every sports league has had a moment in the sun since Nielsen rolled out its new “Big Data + Panel” metric last fall, the milestones have been sufficiently massive that methodology is merely padding extraordinary margins over four, eight, or 12 years ago.
Some of this was to be expected. The World Cup had not been on U.S. soil for 32 years, and the growth in soccer viewership since then made it fairly obvious that viewership milestones were in store. Expectations were so low for the previous World Cup in 2022, which had to be played in the winter months to accommodate the weather in host nation Qatar, that FIFA is widely believed to have awarded Fox this year’s rights as compensation to avoid potential legal action. Yet even that World Cup held up remarkably well in the ratings despite morning timeslots and competition with pro and college football.
If a World Cup played in adverse timeslots in November and December could deliver viewership milestones, surely one played in the familiar U.S. and North American cities, in the normal time of year, in late afternoons and in primetime, could blow all previous records out of the water.
Between Nielsen methodological changes and the unique advantages of this year’s tournament, nobody should be surprised that viewership has been at record levels. What is surprising is the extent to which this year’s numbers have surpassed all other years.
Prior to this year’s World Cup, the record for soccer on English-language television — based on the official Nielsen window, which includes pre-match coverage — was 16.78 million for the previous final, Argentina-France in 2022. The largest for a USMNT match was 15.38 million for another 2022 match, against England on the day after Thanksgiving. It is possible that by the end of this year’s World Cup, neither will rank in the top ten.
Entering this year’s final, eight different matches had surpassed the 2022 final on English-language TV, topped by the USMNT knockout stage matches against Belgium and Bosnia & Herzegovina at 33.1 and 26.4 million respectively. Those figures are on the level of NFL playoff games, and that is with pre-match coverage included and without the addition of a substantial Spanish-language audience on Telemundo — 12.9 million for the Belgium match and 9.8 million against Bosnia & Herzegovnia (Telemundo figures are for the match window only, and combine a linear Nielsen audience with streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics).
Perhaps more impressively, four matches that did not involve the USMNT surpassed that 2022 final — including three that did not feature any North American teams. England-Norway in the quarterfinals had 21.80 million on FOX, an audience figure that would have constituted a historic milestone for any matchup in any prior World Cup.
Again, that is just the English-language story. Telemundo has delivered historic numbers in its own right, including 23.2 million for England-Mexico in the round of 16 (match window only). Like FOX, it has delivered even when the North American teams have not played, averaging 13.8 million for Brazil-Norway in the round of 16 and 13.0 million for England-Norway in the quarterfinals.
While sports viewership has largely rebounded from the COVID-era lows earlier this decade, particularly over the past ten months, even the biggest draws in other sports have not been quite on the level of this year’s most-watched World Cup matches. College football, Major League Baseball, the NBA, men’s college basketball, horse racing, golf and hockey have all delivered their largest audiences in several years just since the “Big Data + Panel” era began in September, and still at least one World Cup match — just on FOX — has topped each.
USMNT-Belgium outdrew the 11-year high for the Indiana-Miami CFP title game (30.1M) and the eight-year high for Game 7 of last year’s World Series (27.3M); USMNT-Bosnia & Herzegovnia topped the ten-year high for Knicks’ coronation in Game 5 of the NBA Finals (24.5M); England-Norway topped the all-time high Kentucky Derby (19.6M), 16-year high for the United States-Canada Olympic hockey final (18.6M) and seven-year high for the Michigan-UConn NCAA men’s basketball national championship (18.3M); any number of matches have outdrawn the 11-year high for the final round of the Masters (14.0M). Again, that is just the FOX audience (with the pre-match included).
For Sunday’s final between Argentina and Spain, all signs point to another new record. Given the popularity and performance of Argentina’s Lionel Messi, plus his squad’s tendency toward comebacks and exciting finishes, there is no reason to believe viewership will fall short of even the USMNT-Belgium match. In a mid-afternoon Sunday window, playing in the nation’s biggest market, the sky would seem to be the limit. Perhaps a rematch of Argentina-France would have been better, and obviously having either the USMNT or Mexico would have been ideal. But Messi in a passing-of-the-torch matchup against Lamine Yamal — whom you might have heard met Messi at a remarkably early age — is far from a mere consolation prize.
Prediction
Expect the World Cup final to challenge USMNT-Belgium for the largest soccer audience ever in the United States on English-language television. That is not a wholly confident prediction, because the 33.1 million for USMNT-Belgium is quite a high bar. But in this year’s World Cup, even the most pie-in-the-sky predictions have often fallen short of the reality. Given audiences in excess of 20 million for England-Mexico and England-Norway, it does not seem like a massive undertaking for viewership to approach or even exceed 30 million with a championship on the line and an ideal timeslot — and at that point, 33.2 million would not be a bridge too far.
A record-high for Spanish-language television seems less likely, given just how much a bigger draw Mexico has been compared to the other teams, but given the matchup it certainly cannot be ruled out.
— 2026 FIFA World Cup Final: Argentina-Spain (3p FOX, Telemundo). Prediction: 35.2 million on FOX (including pre-match), 22.1 million on Telemundo/Peacock (match window only).
