The United States men's national team's World Cup run came to a crushing end Monday night, but the television numbers told a story of unprecedented American soccer interest. Their 4-1 loss to Belgium drew 33.086 million viewers on Fox, making it the most-watched soccer broadcast in U.S. television history.
The audience swelled to 41.033 million during the peak viewing window between 9:15 and 9:30 p.m. Eastern time, according to Nielsen Media research. Fox confirmed the match topped all domestic broadcasts since Super Bowl LX in February, which averaged 125.6 million viewers. It also ranked as the highest-rated non-NFL telecast on any network since the 2016 World Series Game 7.
The USMNT had already shattered viewership records just days earlier. Their last-16 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina drew 26.4 million English-language viewers, which at the time stood as the previous benchmark for the sport in America.
Soccer's grip on the nation extended beyond U.S. team fever. Sunday's Mexico-England round-of-16 clash pulled 21.742 million viewers on Fox alone, making it the most-watched non-USMNT World Cup telecast in English-language U.S. history. When combined with audiences from Telemundo and Peacock, that match averaged 44.84 million viewers total.
To put those numbers in perspective, they crushed comparable sports programming. The Knicks' Game 5 NBA Finals title-clinching victory attracted 24.5 million viewers. The AFC and NFC championship games averaged 48.6 million and 46.1 million respectively, figures the Mexico-England match came remarkably close to matching.
Author James Rodriguez: "These numbers show American soccer has officially crossed into the mainstream, but it took the agony of elimination to prove it."
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