The Fox Sports broadcast team ended its World Cup coverage on Monday with a message to America: Please don’t turn off this TV.
The US men’s national team was beaten 4-1 by Belgium in the round of 16 match, eliminating them from the 2026 FIFA World Cup and shattering America’s dream of advancing deep into the tournament on home soil.
Realizing that many viewers would stop watching football until 2030, the Fox broadcasting team of John Strong and Stu Holden used the final moments of the match to plead with American viewers not to, please.
“If you enjoyed what you saw, well, support your local team,” Fox anchor John Strong told viewers. “This shouldn’t be the last football you watch for the next four years. It’s a beautiful sport.”
“The future of US Soccer is very bright,” added analyst Stu Holden, repeating a message familiar to US Soccer fans for more than a decade.
The repercussions of the US loss will be felt by Fox, which is sure to see its TV ratings decline significantly. However, top-tier soccer from teams like France, Spain, Norway, and Argentina, combined with the favorable time zones in the United States, should lead to huge numbers of matches even without the United States participating in the tournament anymore.
However, there’s no sugarcoating it: If the United States advances to the quarterfinals or beyond, TV executives have been salivating over potential viewership rivaling the NFL playoffs. The dream of watching a soccer match for 50 million viewers seems to be dead in the United States for now.
Of course, Strong and Holden were not just calling on viewers to keep watching the World Cup, but were defending soccer in general, whether it be the major European clubs or Major League Soccer, which is hoping to ride a wave of its own after the World Cup.
But the United States’ defeat by Belgium will not help the cause. Nor will political optics, as President Trump has confirmed that he has pressured FIFA President Gianni Infantino to review the red card issued to American star Folarin Balogun in the last match which would have kept him on the sidelines on Monday. Of course, it didn’t matter, as Balogun isn’t a factor in the game.
