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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.
