The final match of the USMNT World Cup run delivered another strong audience for FOX, though one that could not measure up to eight years ago.
Including pre-match coverage, Saturday’s Netherlands-United States FIFA World Cup round of 16 match averaged 12.97 million viewers on FOX, per Nielsen fast-nationals — dowm from the USMNT’s round of 16 loss to Belgium on ESPN eight years ago (13.44M). The 2014 match aired on a Tuesday afternoon in July.
The match, which peaked with 13.37 million viewers from 11:30-11:45 AM ET, delivered the second-largest single-network audience of the World Cup — trailing only USMNT-England on the day after Thanksgiving (15.38M with pre-match included). The other two USMNT matches averaged 12.01 million (vs. Iran) and 8.31 million (vs. Wales).
Each of the top five markets for Saturday’s game averaged at least a 33 share, meaning a solid third of homes with televisions in use were tuned to the game. Cincinnati led the way with a 10.4 rating and 33 share, followed by St. Louis (10.2/34), Washington, D.C. and Kansas City (both 9.9/33) and Austin, Texas (9.8/35).
Figures for Spanish-language coverage on Telemundo and Peacock were not immediately available.
Speaking of, Telemundo and Peacock averaged 2.07 million viewers for group play matches, including additional streaming viewership not tracked by Nielsen — up 5% from four years ago (1.97M). Mexico was easily the biggest draw on Telemundo, their three matches averaging 6.0 million viewers. The USMNT (3.9M), Argentina (3.6M), Brazil (3.6M) and Spain (3.3M) rounded out the top five.
As previously noted, the November 26 Argentina-Mexico match ranks as the most-watched of the tournament on Spanish-language TV. The audience for that match has been adjusted from the previously-reported 8.7 million to 9.0 million.
The Telemundo average includes a streaming audience of 578,000, up 160% from 2018. The streaming audience accounts for 28% of the total Telemundo average.
(Nielsen estimates from Fox Sports PR, Telemundo PR)
