World Cup 2026 Sets U.S. TV Viewership Records Across Platforms

The 2026 World Cup, hosted in North America, shattered U.S. viewing records across Fox Sports, Telemundo/Peacock, and YouTube. The opening Mexico–South Africa match drew 13.4 million Spanish-language viewers and 7.19 million English-language viewers on Fox, while the final’s audience reached 66.4 million for the game and 62.8 million combined across networks, both all-time highs. Across 104 games, average viewers were 14.04 million; Telemundo and related platforms logged 77.2 billion minutes of coverage; FIFA’s YouTube channel accumulated about 4 billion views and 1.7 billion unique viewers watched World Cup content on YouTube. Nielsen-measurement changes and the North American schedule helped drive these records, with the article highlighting the top 11 matches by combined audience.