Sunday’s World Cup final is entering rarefied air from a viewership standpoint.
Telemundo announced a record-setting 23.9 million viewers watched the Spanish-language broadcast for Spain’s 1-0 victory over Argentina during the World Cup final, making the match the most-watched soccer telecast in Spanish-language media history, the network says. Combined with Fox’s 42.5 million viewers for the match-only window, the total World Cup final audience reached 66.4 million viewers, far and away the most-watched soccer match in U.S. history.
According to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, it was the largest television audience, excluding NFL games and news events, since the series finale of Seinfeld in 1998, which reached 76.3 million viewers. Incredibly, when including NFL games, only Super Bowl audiences have beaten the combined English-language and Spanish-language audience for the World Cup final. Sunday’s match has outdrawn every AFC or NFC Championship game in the modern viewership era (since 1988), per Lewis.
Between Telemundo and Peacock, Spanish-language broadcasts for this year’s World Cup averaged 6.3 million viewers per match, 3.2 million viewers on linear and 3 million viewers on streaming. Fox averaged 7.74 million viewers per match, bringing the combined average to about 14 million viewers per match. (Note: Telemundo’s viewership is for the match-only window, while Fox’s viewership includes some pre-match coverage. Additionally, Peacock viewership is measured via Adobe Analytics, while streaming audiences for Fox are measured by Nielsen.)
On a per-match basis, Telemundo increased its audience by 143 percent versus the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (2.6 million viewers).
The Spain-Argentina final was the most-watched game of the tournament for Telemundo, though Mexico’s Round of 16 matchup with England was not far behind, averaging 23.2 million viewers.
Additionally, Saturday’s third-place match between France and England averaged 7.7 million viewers between Telemundo and Peacock, lifting that match’s combined audience past 20 million.
For a full breakdown of Fox’s World Cup viewership, click here.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.