World Cup Sets New US Viewing Records

The 2026 FIFA World Cup has delivered high ratings and attendance in the US, despite initial concerns about the tournament's reception. The USA-Belgium match in the round of 16 drew a combined audience of 50.1 million viewers on Fox and Telemundo, the largest soccer audience ever recorded in the US. The Mexico-England match also pulled in 46.7 million US viewers, making them the most-watched non-NFL sports events in the US since the 1994 Winter Olympics.

The tournament has also seen high attendance, with 6,259,584 fans attending matches through the round of 16, filling 99.7% of seats with an average crowd of 65,204. More than 7.7 million fans have packed FIFA Fan Festivals across the three host countries, turning downtowns, parks, and plazas into global block parties. The gameplay itself has delivered nonstop theater, anchored by the tightest scoring race in World Cup history, with England's Jude Bellingham and France's Kylian Mbappé and Argentina's Lionel Messi among the top performers.

However, the US national team's tournament ended in disappointment, with the team being eliminated and a controversy surrounding the Folarin Balogun red-card saga, which sparked a global backlash over favoritism and political meddling. The US will now wait to see if the interest in soccer will last beyond the World Cup, with Netflix, Disney, and YouTube considering bids for the US media rights to the 2030 and 2034 World Cups.