The United States and Paraguay met in a high-stakes qualifier that became the most watched soccer broadcast ever in the United States. Across the two major networks, Fox and Telemundo, the match reached a combined audience of 27.537 million viewers.
A New Benchmark for Soccer Broadcasts
Fox reported 18.037 million viewers in English while Telemundo delivered 9.5 million Spanish-language viewers, a split that together outpaced the decisive Game 5 of the NBA Finals, which attracted 24.5 million viewers.
Historic Context and Previous Records
The previous record was set by the 2014 World Cup final, which drew 27.314 million viewers across ABC, Univision and their streaming platforms. Other tournament openers, such as Mexico versus South Africa and Brazil versus Morocco, also posted strong numbers, but none matched the U.S.-Paraguay combined total.
The broadcast also surpassed the record English-language audience for a men's World Cup match, previously held by the 2014 U.S.-Portugal game on ESPN, and fell just short of the all-time English-language record set by the 2015 women's final, which attracted 25.632 million viewers on Fox.