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Almost from the start, the 2026 Men’s World Cup has been setting viewing records in the United States.
The opening match between Mexico and South Africa on June 11 attracted 13.4 million viewers for the Spanish-language Telemundo and Peacock broadcast and 7.19 million viewers for the English-language Fox show. Both were all-time highs in the United States for a World Cup opener, and for Telemundo and Peacock, it was the most-watched World Cup match ever on Spanish-language television in that country.
The latter mark lasted all seven days until Mexico’s next match. NBCUniversal, which owns Telemundo and Peacock, and Fox Sports will continue to break and re-break numerous audience records throughout the World Cup. The latest audience set by the two companies — a combined audience of 62.8 million viewers for the final on July 19 (and 66.4 million for the match alone) — obliterated the previous all-time high for a soccer telecast in the United States, which was 26.7 million viewers for the 2015 Women’s World Cup final. The highest mark for the men’s match was 25.78 million for the 2022 final.
Having the World Cup played in North America – which from a television standpoint meant afternoon and evening timeslots for almost every match, a huge advantage over the past few World Cups – certainly helped boost the ratings. Changes in the way Nielsen measures on-air viewership in recent years have also helped margins, but even with those advantages, both Fox and Telemundo have exceeded previous expectations for how successful a TV event will be.
Here are the 11 best matches, paying homage to the 11 players on the field for a soccer team, from the World Cup; All characters are common fans of Fox, Telemundo, and Peacock. Below the chart are some amazing figures from the tournament.
Other numbers from the World Cup:
14.04 million: Average viewership for the 104 World Cup matches (7.74 million for Fox, FS1 and Tubi; 6.3 million for Telemundo, Peacock, Universo and other NBCU platforms). Expanding the field to 48 teams means several additional groups from the past seven World Cup finals (when the field had 32 teams), an additional knockout tournament and 32 more matches.
116, 143: The viewership percentage for Fox Sports and Telemundo/Peacock was up compared to the 2022 World Cup, which was held in Qatar in November and December of that year.
9: The number of Fox TV shows beat the previous all-time high for an English-language broadcast of a men’s World Cup match (16.78 million for the 2022 final).
77.2 billion: Minutes of World Cup coverage consumed on Telemundo, Peacock, Universo and other Telemundo digital platforms during the tournament. This is more than the combined total of the 2022 and 2018 tournaments ($43.2 billion).
4: Number of TV shows since January 1, 2024 that attracted a larger syndicated audience in the United States than the final between Spain and Argentina. It’s the last three Super Bowls (all of which had more than 120 million viewers) and the September 2024 presidential debate (67.14 million across 17 networks).
4 billion: Views of the official FIFA YouTube channel during the World Cup.
1.7 billion: The number of unique viewers around the world who watched World Cup-related videos on YouTube during the tournament, according to the streamer’s internal data.
21 million: Average viewership of over 40 official YouTube broadcasts of the final worldwide.
17.2 billion: World Cup content views across all Fox Sports digital and social channels during the tournament.
2.25 billion: Video views on Telemundo’s social platforms increased ninefold compared to the 2022 and 2018 World Cups.
