The World Cup wrapped over the weekend, but the TV industry may well be kicking it around for quite some time.Fox Sports lured massive crowds to the event even though “home teams” from the U.S. and Mexico were eliminated well before the tournament reached its late stages. A game between Argentinaand England averaged 15.063 million viewers on Fox, making it the most-watched FIFA Men’s WorldCup semifinals match in English-language history, while a match between Spain and France averaged11.462 million viewers. On Tuesday, Fox said the tournament final between Spain and Argentina final drew 38.9 million viewers, while numbers from Telemundo, which holds Spanish-language rights, estimated 23.9 million people watched its telecast.
These eye-popping totals suggest “there has to be something other than the competition itself that has reached people to make them interested,” says Eric Shanks, CEO and executive producer of Fox Sports, which has telecast English-language games from 19 different venues over 39 days of play. The executive says interest in the overall event has given rise to large groups watching them in bars and friends’ homes, creating “more of a socio-cultural event than probably anyone could have imagined in their wildest dreams.”
