Far from the ratings drag one would have expected given the time of year, the winter World Cup continues to deliver viewership milestones.
The three USMNT FIFA World Cup group play matches averaged 11.71 million viewers across the Fox Sports TV and digital platforms (including pre-match coverage), up 10% from the last time the U.S. made the World Cup in 2014 (10.62M). Per FOX, this year’s average is the highest ever for USMNT group stage matches. Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not included in prior years.
Tuesday’s USMNT-Iran match averaged 12.01 million on FOX (including pre-match coverage), topping the equivalent USMNT-Germany match on ESPN in 2014 (8.23M including prematch, 10.8M match window only).
The United States’ win, which peaked with 15.61 million from 3:45-4 PM ET, trails only their match against England on Black Friday (15.38M, including pre-match coverage) as the most-watched of the tournament.
Figures for Telemundo’s coverage were not immediately available.
Outside of the U.S. matches, the top single-network audience of the tournament thus far was 8.9 million viewers for Argentina-Mexico on Telemundo Saturday (including additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen) — the largest Spanish-language group stage audience on record. The match averaged an additional 4.48 million across FS1 (4.13M) and Fox Sports’ streaming platforms.
Ranking second among non-U.S. matches, Brazil-Serbia scored 6.19 million on FOX Thanksgiving Day, peaking at 13.46 million — the largest English-language audience on record for a non-U.S. group stage match. The match averaged an additional 5.7 million on Telemundo, bringing the combined audience up to nearly 12 million viewers. Keep in mind coverage aired opposite record-high NFL competition.
Per the most up-to-date averages from the networks, coverage of the World Cup is averaging 3.15 million viewers on Fox Sports (31-match average) and 2.57 million on Telemundo and Peacock (24-match average) — up 44% and 24% respectively from the equivalent averages in 2018. Telemundo’s streaming audience (673K) accounts for more than a quarter of its overall average.
