The USMNT’s final pre-World Cup tune-up drew the largest English-language audience ever for an American men’s soccer friendly, according to Sports Business Journal.
Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Germany at Soldier Field averaged 1.5 million viewers on TNT/truTV, peaking at 1.9 million. It topped the previous record — set just six days earlier — when the USMNT beat Senegal 3-2 on May 31, averaging 867,000 viewers across the same platforms.
USMNT friendlies on Turner properties had been largely invisible for most of 2025. The team averaged just 803,000 viewers per game across all English-language broadcasts that year — down 25 percent from 2024 — with a stretch of seven straight non-Gold Cup games below 420,000 viewers. The low point came in January, when back-to-back friendlies against Venezuela and Costa Rica drew 286,000 and 252,000 viewers respectively on TNT.
The Gold Cup provided some relief last summer — a quarterfinal win over Costa Rica peaked at 2.83 million on Fox — but those numbers lived on a broadcast network, not cable, and came with the stakes of a knockout game.
The Germany match nearly doubled the full-year 2025 average in a single afternoon.
As for the game itself, Kai Havertz put Germany up in the second minute off a set piece, but Antonee Robinson equalized in the 37th with a first-time volley from outside the box off a Christian Pulisic corner. Leroy Sané’s second-half strike gave the Germans the win in front of a sold-out crowd of 63,636 at Soldier Field.
Later Saturday, TNT/truTV drew 853,000 viewers for the USWNT against Brazil, peaking at 1 million. That’s the best audience for a women’s friendly since 2015.
The USMNT opens the World Cup on Friday against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium on Fox, where John Strong and Stu Holden will be on the call for their third consecutive men’s tournament.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.