Pretty much from the opening kick, the 2026 men’s World Cup was setting viewing records in the United States.
The opening match between Mexico and South Africa on June 11 drew 13.4 million viewers for Telemundo and Peacock’s Spanish-language telecast and 7.19 million for Fox’s English-language presentation. Both were all-time highs in the U.S. for the opening game of the World Cup, and for Telemundo and Peacock, it was the most watched World Cup game ever on Spanish-language TV in this country.
The latter mark lasted all of seven days, until Mexico’s next match. NBCUniversal, which owns Telemundo and Peacock, and Fox Sports would go on to break and re-break multiple audience records throughout the World Cup. The last one the two companies set — a combined audience of 62.8 million viewers for the July 19 final (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 for the 2015 women’s World Cup final. The high mark for a men’s match was 25.78 million for the 2022 final.
Having the World Cup in North America — which from a TV perspective meant afternoon and evening timeslots for nearly every match, a huge advantage over the past few World Cups — certainly helped fuel the ratings. Changes to the way Nielsen measures on-air viewing in recent years also helped around the margins, but even with those advantages, both Fox and Telemundo blew past expectations for how successful a TV event it would be.
The top 11 matches, in honor of the 11 players on the pitch for a soccer team, from the World Cup are below; all figures are combined audiences for Fox, Telemundo and Peacock. Below the chart are some more eye-popping figures from the tournament.
Other numbers from the World Cup:
14.04 million: Average viewers for the 104 games in the World Cup (7.74 million for Fox, FS1 and Tubi; 6.3 million for Telemundo, Peacock, Universo and other NBCU platforms). The expansion of the field to 48 teams meant several extra groups from the past seven World Cups (when the field was at 32 teams), an additional knockout round and 32 more matches.
116, 143: Percentage increases in viewers for Fox Sports and Telemundo/Peacock compared to the 2022 World Cup, which was played in Qatar in November and December of that year.
9: The number of Fox telecasts that beat the previous all-time high for an English-language broadcast of a men’s World Cup game (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. That’s more than the combined total for the 2022 and 2018 tournaments (43.2 billion).
4: The number of telecasts since Jan. 1, 2024, that drew a larger combined audience in the United States than the Spain-Argentina final. They are the past three Super Bowls (which all had more than 120 million viewers) and the September 2024 presidential debate (67.14 million across 17 networks).
4 billion: Views for FIFA’s official YouTube channel during the World Cup.
1.7 billion: The number of unique viewers worldwide who watched World Cup-related videos on YouTube during the tournament, according to the streamer’s internal data.
21 million: Average viewership for 40-plus official YouTube broadcasts worldwide of the final match.
17.2 billion: Views of World Cup content across all of Fox Sports’ digital and social channels during the tournament.
2.25 billion: Video views on Telemundo’s social platforms, a ninefold increase from the 2022 and 2018 World Cups.
