The FIFA World Cup tournament barreled into North America this year amid a tide of nativism, political polarization in the U.S. and the usual uncertainty over how well the quadrennial men’s soccer championship would play with American sports fans — especially as this year’s 39-day competition collided directly with the America 250 celebrations.
After 25 days, the answer is undeniable. The World Cup has delivered an audience and sponsorship windfall for Fox Sports and for Telemundo and Peacock, which have Spanish-language linear and streaming rights to the tournament in the U.S.
All three platforms have set viewership records with key matches. Big wins by the U.S. Men’s National Team and the national teams of Mexico, England, France, Argentina and other top contenders have driven intense coverage by global media outlets.
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Perhaps most important for the game of soccer, however, the dynamics around the tournament, rivalries among teams and the charisma of star players have resonated in U.S. pop culture feeds like never before.
“We’re seeing numbers for some of these matches that we don’t see for anything but the NFL,” Michael Mulvihill, Fox Sports’ president of insight and analytics, tells Variety of the tournament that began June 11 and concludes on July 19. The results have been strong across the board in key adult demos. One noticeable element to World Cup coverage that Mulvihill points to is the high proportion of multi-generational viewing that it engenders — an audience that is incredibly valuable to advertisers.
“We have numbers showing that more people are watching together than what we typically see in sports, and more parents are watching with kids than what we typically see,” Mulvihill says.
Fox has poured resources from across the country into extensive coverage of the tournament, from pregame shows to a special nightly wrap-up, “After Hours With James Corden.” The program mixes game highlights, celebrity guests and pre-taped “The Late Show” style skits and sketches.
The U.S.’s hard-fought 2-0 victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina on July 1 now ranks as the most-watched English-language soccer telecast of all time in the U.S., with 24.4 million viewers tuning in. That number is expected to swell to close to 40 million once Telemundo and Peacock’s numbers for their Spanish-language telecasts are factored in when final ratings data comes in early this week.
But Fox and Telemundo also expect the July 1 match’s record to be quickly broken Monday night as the U.S. takes on Belgium in a Round 16 match in Seattle. Another big number is expected when the ratings come in for England’s 3-2 victory over Mexico in Mexico City, the July 5 match that put a bright spotlight on England’s social media-friendly stars Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice as well as Mexico’s Julián Quiñones and Johan Vásquez. Mexico’s victory on June 30 against Ecuador brought in 10.4 million viewers for Fox Sports. France landed a big 1-0 win against Paraguay on July 4 that was a showcase for its superstar player Kylian Mbappé, and that game is also expected to have ratings pull.
“The U.S. matches have out-delivered expectations, but what’s been more surprising is some of these matches that are between nations where the American sports fan doesn’t know a lot of players and they don’t even have that much familiarity with the country itself. A lot of those matches have done really well,” Mulvihill says.
“We had a Scotland-Haiti match that was up against the clinch game of the Knicks [NBA Finals] series, and that did 6 million viewers. We had Uruguay and Cape Verde that did 6.2 million viewers. Those are countries where not only does the American sports fan not know any of the players — a lot of us can’t find those countries on a map, and we’re still seeing huge audiences for these games,” he says.
Through the initial 72 Group Stage matches, which concluded June 27, Fox Sports has averaged 5.05 million viewers per telecast. The level of buzz and engagement around games is growing as the competition moves toward the final rounds. President Trump jumped into the mix over the holiday weekend when political news outlets reported that he reached out to FIFA officials to lobby for U.S. team star striker Folarin Balogun, who was hit with a red card after the team’s 2-0 win over Bosnia. Balogun was in fact given an unusual reprieve from the traditional red card penalty and will be allowed to play in the U.S. team’s July 6 match against Belgium.
The final showdown is slated for July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. As of July 6, Fox Sports World Cup coverage has generated some 7 billion views across Fox Sports’ digital and social platforms, with more than 1,000 videos delivering over 1 million views apiece. Fox Sports has also picked up more than 6 million new followers across major social platforms since the tournament kicked off June 11.
Matt Turner, goalkeeper of the U.S. Men’s team, likened the environment at games to a college football vibe, a la the team spontaneously singing the folksy John Denver chestnut “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
“The fact that it’s here on our shores, the fan passion is coming to light, we’re creating our own new sort of things with ‘Country Roads’ after the game — it’s like the college football scene mixing with the U.S. [soccer] scene,” Turner told Fox Sports. “And what I’ve loved about it is that it’s not like we’re trying to be that European culture. We’re not saying we need to chant like the English chant, or chant like the Germans chant. We’re taking on our own traditions and cultures, and I think that’s the way it should be. We really needed this tournament in order to find our identity alongside our fans.”
Carli Lloyd, a Fox Sports commentator and former member of World Cup-winning U.S. women’s teams, says the U.S. men’s team has charmed the nation.
“The atmosphere each game we go to, it gets bigger and better. I think the American fan base has come to love this team and not just because of the wins, but the way that they’re performing,” Lloyd said on air after the team’s July 1 victory. “It’s been a long time coming here in America for the fan base to be like this.”
Fox, like NBCUniversal’s Telemundo, has been a huge investment in rights fees for the World Cup tournament, so there is a sense of relief that the games are connecting with American audiences. Mulvihill asserts that Fox wasn’t worried about a big audience turnout. But they could not have predicted that the conditions in the U.S. would be just right a big communal experience that plays out across screens and in-person experiences – not just the games being played in 11 cities (plus venues in Canada and Mexico) but also through outdoor viewing parties that are driving local connections to FIFA soccer.
“We already knew that soccer was popular in the U.S. I feel like that has been a decided question for a while. But when you talk about being in the zeitgeist, this is a unique moment where you know the U.S. has an opportunity to welcome the whole world at a time when we’re celebrating the 250th birthday of the country. There’s been an incredible vibe around this tournament and a great positivity in the way that the U.S. has welcomed fans from every participating nation,” Mulvihill says. “I really think it’s that vibe that’s driving viewership more than familiarity with the players. This whole thing has been about a really exuberant fan experience, and leaning into national pride and fan identity.”
Mulvihill says the World Cup audience turnout challenges one long-held assumption about sports viewership in the U.S. in recent years. “The feeling that sports viewing is about knowing the star players — that’s been turned upside down by this tournament. It really hasn’t been about star players. It’s been more about the fan experience and the collective energy of experiencing it together,” he says.
Fox and Telemundo’s ability to measure their World Cup game audiences have been enhanced since the last tournament in 2022 thanks to changes Nielsen has made in how it measures viewership in out-of-home locations such as stadiums, auditoriums, theaters, nightclubs, restaurants and bars. World Cup watch party events across the country have drawn hundreds of thousands of people. It’s contributed about 25% of the audience for games so far, Mulvihill says. Fox has been happy to encourage FIFA and other efforts to organize fan watch events large and small.
“Instead of seeing those big public events as cannibalistic, now they’re all just additive to our audience, so we love it when we see those huge crowds at the fan fest,” Mulvihill says. “We want to lean into the idea that it is a communal experience.”
At 6 billion and counting, the social media numbers are mind-boggling for Fox researchers to process, he admits. Fox is focused on using these weeks of enormous audiences to showcase other big Fox priorities such as its Major League Baseball coverage and its IndyCar auto racing franchise.
“Obviously most of the monetization for us is coming from TV and from the matches themselves, but the social numbers are breathtaking,” Mulvihill says. “As a way to drive conversation and awareness, and then hopefully that conversation is a catalyst for getting people to show up for the games themselves.”
The volume of social media activity among casual soccer fans underscores how much the game and the aura around it is breaking through. Based on the momentum so far, Fox and Telemundo/Peacock are bracing for a blockbuster final on July 19.
“This tournament has really dominated cultural conversation this summer like nothing else that we’ve ever done,” Mulvihill says. “I don’t know that there’s been a movie of the summer or a song of the summer. I don’t think there’s anything else in pop culture that is rivaling the World Cup for just taking over the conversation and really controlling the culture for the whole summer.”
(Pictured top: England star Harry Kane)
