The US men’s national soccer team achieved a remarkable milestone by setting the record for the most-watched soccer broadcast in American history, not once, but twice.
Despite the disappointment of a 4-1 defeat against Belgium in the round of 16 on Monday, the pregame buzz drew an impressive audience of 33.086 million viewers, as reported by Nielsen Media research. The peak viewership reached 41.033 million between 9:15 and 9:30 PM ET.
Fox, the network holding the English-language broadcasting rights for the World Cup in the US, announced that this event marked the highest viewership for any domestic telecast across all networks since Super Bowl LX, which attracted 125.6 million viewers in February. Additionally, it was noted as the most-watched non-NFL broadcast since Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.
Previously, the USMNT had set a new viewership record during their last-32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina, which garnered a final English-language audience of 26.4 million.
American viewers are not just interested in the home team; they are tuning in for other exciting matchups as well.
Nielsen Media also revealed that 21.742 million people watched the Mexico versus England match on Sunday, making it the most-watched World Cup telecast not featuring the USMNT in US history. When combining the audiences from Telemundo and Peacock, the match averaged a staggering 44.84 million viewers.
These impressive figures surpassed the viewership of the New York Knicks’ title-clinching Game 5 in the NBA Finals, which attracted 24.5 million viewers, and came close to the averages of the AFC and NFC championship games, which had 48.6 million and 46.1 million viewers, respectively.
