The major 2026 FIFA World Cup national team soccer tournament has opened with large audiences across several major global markets, most notably in the US for the country’s first match.
The US men’s national team’s 4-1 victory over Paraguay on Friday became the team’s most-watched English-language and Spanish-language World Cup telecast ever.
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The match delivered 15.986 million viewers across Fox, Fox One, and Tubi, and another 8.9 million viewers on NBCUniversal’s Telemundo Spanish-language broadcaster and Peacock streaming platform.
That made it the most-watched US World Cup match ever on Spanish-language TV and the most-watched World Cup group stage match not featuring Mexico.
Helped by the game being held on home soil and no time zone difference, the English-language delivery was up 106% from the country’s comparable first group game telecast at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. That match against Wales drew 7.76 million, while the Spanish-language broadcast was up 156% from that game (3.5 million).
USA’s dominant victory over Paraguay became the national team’s most-streamed English-language match, with a 1.13 million average minute audience. The overall English-language viewership peaked at 18.86 million.
In another of the host countries, Mexico’s 2-0 win over South Africa on the opening day of the tournament attracted 12.1 million viewers on Telemundo in the US, making it the most-watched World Cup game in Spanish-language history.
It was also the most-streamed Mexico World Cup match and the most-streamed group stage match in Spanish-language history and represented the most-watched World Cup opening game, regardless of language, ever.
The match, which kicked off the 23rd edition of the World Cup on Thursday, also drew big audiences in key European markets.
In the UK, an average of 6.6 million viewers watched the fixture across ITV1 and ITVX, peaking at 7.7 million, while M6 and Rai each drew 4.8 million viewers in France and Italy, respectively.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, a huge audience tuned in for that country’s first match on media heavyweight Globo and the CazeTV sports streaming channel.
On Globo’s main linear television channel and its Sportv (pay-TV) and GeTV (digital) offerings, approximately 49.9 million people watched the country’s 1-1 draw with Morocco.
CazeTV’s audience peaked at 12.7 million for the match on Saturday, which it claimed is the most-watched live soccer broadcast in YouTube history, surpassing the previous high of 6.9 million also set by CazeTV for the 2022 World Cup final between Argentina and France.
Elsewhere, Germany’s 7-1 rout of World Cup debutants Curacao attracted 23.4 million viewers on German public service broadcaster ARD.
