World Cup drew record viewers, while FIFA eyes massive rights fee jump
World Cup drew record viewers, while FIFA eyes massive rights fee jump
The tournament’s final was the highest-rated soccer match in American history, and it wasn’t particularly close.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is now officially in the books. Spain defeated Argentina in a final match for the record books — at least from a ratings perspective. Data is now available for the final match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and it shows that the match drew nearly 63 million combined viewers across Fox, Peacock, and Telemundo. Those eye-popping numbers are already fueling speculation about just how much the next set of World Cup broadcasting rights will go for ahead of the 2030 tournament.
Key Details:
- Eye-popping: The 2026 FIFA World Cup final match drew 62.8 million total viewers.
- Outfoxed: Nearly 40 million of those viewers watched the game on Fox.
- Global popularity: World Cup streaming in England rose over 400% as compared to the 2022 tournament.
Spain’s 1-0 victory over Argentina in extra time on Sunday was watched by 62.8 million viewers. That’s more than twice as many people as watched the 2022 final, and rises to the largest-ever audience for any soccer match in the United States by nearly 17 million viewers. Fox led the ratings as the platform with the most viewers, drawing 38.9 million pairs of eyes to its English-language broadcast of the game. That’s higher than all but two of the network’s NFL broadcasts for the 2025-26 season, and its audience peaked at a whopping 51.7 million viewers.
Telemundo and Peacock’s Spanish-language audiences contributed another 23.9 million viewers to the tally, breaking the all-time Spanish-language record for a World Cup broadcast of 23.2 million. As a whole, Fox Sports averaged 7.74 million viewers per match over the course of the tournament — more than double the audience for both its 2022 and 2018 World Cup telecasts.
The numbers surely give FIFA reason to think that the 2030 FIFA World Cup bidding process will be quite lucrative. Soccer is gaining traction in the United States, and if domestic popularity of the World Cup is finally catching up to the tournament’s global prestige, FIFA could be in for a massive payday.
Now that the 2026 tournament is behind it, FIFA has set its sights on cashing in on its recent success with the broadcast rights for the 2030 and 2034 men’s World Cups. FIFA is expected to open negotiations later this year, and the football governing body will be asking for a substantial increase over the $485 million that Fox last paid for the rights. Reporting indicates that the price tag will start at $1 billion, with FIFA hoping the competition will push it far past that total. There is also the possibility that FIFA will bundle the English and Spanish broadcasting rights for both the 2030 and 2034 Men’s World Cups and offer them all in one package for a total around $3 billion.
One issue that could interfere with the ballooning rights fees is the fact that the next two Men’s World Cups will not be in as advantageous of time zones for domestic broadcasters. While there will be some games played in South America (Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay), the vast majority of the tournament will be played in Europe. Then, Saudi Arabia will host in 2034, meaning that games will not fit as neatly into the afternoon and primetime windows as they did this summer.
Therefore, the winner might not be the one simply with the deepest pockets, but the one that can justify the larger fees by maximizing the impact within their distribution model. That is why a streaming service, which is not beholden to typical broadcast windows or primetime advertising pressures, might make the most sense. However, Fox is not likely to give up its grip on the World Cup easily.
Fox has held the domestic Men’s and Women’s World Cup broadcast rights since 2018. Given this summer’s success and growing popularity of international soccer in the United States, the network is expected to put together a substantial bid for the next round of rights. However, Fox has already lost the Women’s World Cup to Netflix, which will take over broadcast responsibilities in 2027.
The world’s largest streamer has been hesitant to fully invest in live sports leagues, opting instead to stick to major events, like Christmas Day NFL games, the MLB Home Run Derby, marquee MMA and boxing matches, and more. While the World Cup is a much larger operation than anything Netflix has previously undertaken on the sports front, it fits the streamer’s model of investing in sports rights that don’t require season-long commitments and are highly concentrated to maximize attention and engagement. There has already been reporting that Netflix is interested in expanding its foray into soccer by bidding on the 2030 Men’s World Cup.
“It’s the perfect type of sporting event that would interest Netflix,” Netflix global sports host Elle Duncan told Front Office Sports. “Despite what someone may believe, Netflix isn’t laying around waiting for scraps from other legacy broadcasters who don’t want things any more. They are only going to these leagues like, ‘We want things that can be major, that feel special and that are different.’ And the World Cup is exactly like that.
However, it might not be the world’s largest streamer that Fox most has to worry about. Instead, it might be Duncan’s former employer, the worldwide leader in sports, ESPN. With the emphasis Disney is placing on ESPN Unlimited, bringing the World Cup to its networks and streamer would be a major addition to its offerings.
Another outlet that could prove to be a contender is YouTube TV, which has been amassing an interesting sports portfolio in recent years. In addition to being the exclusive provider of NFL Sunday Ticket, the Google-owned [live TV streamer] is expected to be the home of the NBA’s forthcoming in-market streaming platform when it launches for the 2027-28 season. Like Netflix — and ESPN to a lesser degree via Disney — YouTube is a global brand, so it has opportunities to potentially expand the rights beyond just the traditional domestic package.
With the recent changes announced at NBCUniversal, the broadcaster could look to capitalize on the success it saw on the Spanish-language side of the 2026 World Cup and land both the English and Spanish rights moving forward. Peacock already is home to the English Premier League, so adding more highly popular international soccer to the flywheel could be a huge boon for the outlet.
Regardless of which outlet ends up with the next set of domestic World Cup rights, there is no doubt that FIFA will extract far more in fees than it did in the last round. Whether the U.S. ratings success is a sign that soccer is finally catching on in America or not remains to be seen, but football’s international governing body will undoubtedly look to cash in on the potential one way or the other.
Fox One
Launched August 21, 2025, Fox One is a direct-to-consumer streaming service from Fox Corporation. Billed as a “major digital initiative,” Fox One brings together the full range of Fox’s leading news, sports, and entertainment brands, offering live and on-demand access in one unified platform.