After milestone audiences for Mexico last Thursday and the United States on Friday, Brazil kept the momentum going into the first weekend of the FIFA World Cup.
Saturday’s Brazil-Morocco FIFA World Cup match averaged 11.2 million viewers on Telemundo (combining a Nielsen-measured linear audience and streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics), plus a Nielsen-measured 10.02 million on FOX. Note that the Telemundo figure is for the match window only, while the Fox Sports audience includes pre-match coverage.
The Telemundo audience ranks as the second-largest on record for the World Cup on Spanish-language television, behind only Mexico-South Africa last Thursday — which finished with 13.4 million viewers, up from the previously-announced preliminary audience of 12.1 million.
The Fox audience is the largest on record for a non-U.S. World Cup group stage match on English-language television, and the company’s second-largest of the tournament overall. United States-Paraguay on Friday night averaged 18.04 million, up from the previously reported preliminary figure of 15.99 million.
Note that this year’s World Cup is just the second since Nielsen began including out-of-home viewing in its estimates in 2020 and the first since the company shifted to a new methodology last fall that integrates “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes with its traditional panel. Those changes have given most sports properties a leg up on even just a year ago, much less four years ago — and certainly as compared to years prior to 2020.
Leading out of Brazil-Morocco, Haiti-Scotland averaged 6.0 million each on both Telemundo (match window) and Fox Sports (including pre-match) — despite facing an NBA Finals Game 5 that averaged 24.5 million on ABC. Combined, the two events approached about 40 million viewers across three networks on the least-watched night of the week.
Qatar-Switzerland led off the day with 5.5 million on Telemundo and 5.4 million on Fox Sports.
On Sunday, Netherlands-Japan averaged 8.8 million on FOX — the second-largest non-U.S. group stage audience on English-language television — and 8.4 million on Telemundo. Ivory Coast-Ecuador followed with 9.2 million on Telemundo and 4.7 million on FS1. Leading off the day, Germany-Curacao averaged 6.4 million on Telemundo and 6.3 million on FOX.
Through the opening weekend, coverage of the FIFA World Cup was averaging 7.5 million viewers on Telemundo (Nielsen + Adobe), up 234% from the same point in 2022. Telemundo is actually averaging more viewers on a combined basis than Fox Sports, which was averaging 6.7 million (up 152% from the full group stage average in 2022).
Note that the Adobe Analytics streaming audience for Telemundo is 2.5 million, so Fox would come out ahead on a Nielsen-only basis. NBCU’s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming viewership, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.
