The absence of the United States and Mexico has done nothing to slow down viewership for the FIFA World Cup.
The FIFA World Cup quarterfinals averaged 15.64 million viewers on FOX (including pre-match coverage) and 10.4 million on Telemundo and Peacock (match window only) — the latter figure combining a Nielsen-measured linear audience with streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics — marking the most-watched World Cup quarterfinal round ever on English or Spanish-language television respectively.
Compared to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which took place during the winter months, the FOX audience increased 150% from 6.25 million and the Telemundo audience 154% from 4.1 million. On Telemundo, the Nielsen-measured linear audience increased 80% (from 2.7 to 4.9 million), while the Adobe Analytics-measured streaming audience soared fourfold (from 1.4 to 5.5 million) and accounted for the majority of the audience.
Saturday’s England-Norway match was the top draw of the quarterfinals with 21.80 million viewers on FOX (including pre-match) and 13.0 million on Telemundo (match window only), a quarterfinal record on both English and Spanish-language television. The FOX audience topped England-Mexico the previous week (21.74M) as the largest for any non-USMNT World Cup match, regardless of round, on English-language television.
Even including U.S. matches, only three soccer telecasts have ever averaged more viewers on an English-language network — the 2015 United States-Japan Women’s World Cup Final (22.32M) and this year’s two USMNT knockout stage matches against Bosnia & Herzegovnia (26.395M) and Belgium (33.09M).
Note that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, only began doing so in 100 percent of markets a year ago, and is months into a new methodology that integrates its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Those changes will skew historical comparisons, particularly to years before 2020.
The Argentina-Switzerland nightcap averaged 18.15 million on FOX (including pre-match) and 11.8 million on Telemundo and Peacock (match window only), ranking as the second-most watched quarterfinal match ever on English or Spanish-language television.
This year’s World Cup now accounts for nine of the 12 largest soccer audiences on English-language TV, between Saturday’s two quarterfinals, the five USMNT matches, England-Mexico and Argentina-Cape Verde in the round of 16 (15.64M). It also accounts for the top 12 World Cup audiences ever on Spanish-language television.
The two weekday afternoon matches did not fare as well, but France-Morocco last Thursday still averaged 10.25 million on FOX and 8.0 million on Telemundo and Peacock. Spain-Belgium last Friday drew 9.87 and 7.3 million respectively.
