The USMNT-Belgium World Cup game drew over 50 million viewers despite the blowout loss
The combined audience on Fox and Telemundo was the biggest for a television event since Super Bowl LX, and bigger than both of this year’s NFL conference championship games.
The U.S. men’s soccer team set another viewership record in its loss to Belgium, despite the lopsided 4-1 defeat.
A combined total of 50.125 million viewers watched on Fox (37.225 million) and Telemundo (12.9 million), whether via traditional television or online streaming.
Fox issued a revised number on Friday morning, acknowledging that its initial announcement of 33.086 million was for a time span bigger than the traditional “match window” metric used in soccer. The revision took the total over 50 million, making this the first soccer game to reach that bar.
It was the biggest audience for a television event since Super Bowl LX, and bigger than both of this year’s NFL conference championship games. The AFC matchup drew 48.6 million viewers, and the NFC drew 46.1 million.
Fox also said its audience alone was the biggest for any non-NFL broadcast since Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, when the Chicago Cubs ended their infamous championship drought. That mark was previously held by this year’s college football national championship game, which drew 30.1 million viewers across a range of ESPN channels.
Fox noted that Philadelphia was the network’s No. 5 local ratings market for U.S.-Belgium, with a 14.22 rating and a 38 share. That means around 38% of all households watching television at that time tuned in to the game.
It wasn’t lost on U.S. fans that the blowout score turned some casual viewers sour. But the World Cup overall has continued to be a big deal, and that seems unlikely to change.
» READ MORE: The hype train of a ‘golden generation’ of U.S. players and their $6 million coach crashes out of the World Cup
England’s dramatic 3-2 win over Mexico on Sunday night drew an audience worth a Sunday night NFL game: 46.690 million viewers combined between Fox (23.49 million) and Telemundo (23.1 million, a network record for soccer).
That topped the U.S.-Bosnia round of 32 game, which held the record for a few days with a combined total of 36.195 million.
Earlier Sunday, Norway’s upset of Brazil in the Meadowlands drew 28.373 million viewers combined.
According to publicly available data so far, 12 games this summer attracted audiences of over 20 million viewers across the two networks, including four in the round of 16: U.S.-Belgium, Mexico-England, Brazil-Norway, and Paraguay-France in Philadelphia on July 4 (22.924 million).
Data compiled by The Inquirer show that the top five soccer audiences in U.S. history, and seven of the top 10, have come during this World Cup.
We’ll see if the numbers grow again in the quarterfinals, which include a Saturday doubleheader of England vs. Norway and Argentina vs. Switzerland (5 and 9 p.m., Fox29 and Telemundo 62).
If all the favorites prevail, the semifinals would be France-Spain and England-Argentina. The first of those would match two of the sport’s biggest superstars, Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal; the second would pit Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane against Lionel Messi in a renewal of one of soccer’s most famous rivalries.
» READ MORE: Meg Kane was the perfect face of Philly’s World Cup campaign. Her family, and its tragedy, shaped her message.
