{"id":58897,"date":"2026-07-22T04:15:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T04:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/58897\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T04:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T04:15:18","slug":"world-cup-final-between-spain-and-argentina-watched-by-roughly-60-million-on-fox-and-telemundo-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/58897\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup final between Spain and Argentina watched by roughly 60 million on Fox and Telemundo"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong during this summer\u2019s World Cup<\/a> \u2014 a complicated logistical undertaking that included three host nations, 16 stadiums, 48 teams, 104 games and endless opportunities for controversy<\/a> on and off the soccer field.<\/p>\n

But in retrospect, a lot of things went right.<\/p>\n

The United States, Canada and Mexico spent nearly six weeks hosting soccer\u2019s biggest showcase and \u2014 at least for the most part \u2014 the action stayed on the field. <\/p>\n

Fox said Tuesday that the Spain-Argentina final drew 38.937 million viewers \u2014 including a peak of 51.685 million \u2014 which easily set the record as the most-watched English-language soccer telecast in U.S. history, according to Nielsen Media Research. Spain won the final<\/a> 1-0 in extra time.<\/p>\n

Telemundo\u2019s preliminary numbers for its Spanish-language broadcast said the game had a total audience of 22.6 million, putting the total number of viewers in the U.S. at more than 60 million.<\/p>\n

Star players like Argentina\u2019s Lionel Messi<\/a>, France\u2019s Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/a> and Norway\u2019s Erling Haaland<\/a> became household names across North America, television ratings remained high in the U.S. even after the Americans were eliminated<\/a> and despite high ticket prices, most games featured packed stadiums.<\/p>\n

FIFA President Gianni Infantino<\/a> gave effusive praise to the host countries on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Attendance was good, so were ratings<\/p>\n

Fox broadcast all 104 games in English on its platforms and American viewership remained strong even after the U.S. was eliminated by Belgium in the round of 16.<\/p>\n

Spanish broadcasts on Telemundo were also a popular option<\/a> \u2014 even for non-native speakers.<\/p>\n

Fox averaged 7.737 million viewers for the 104 broadcasts on Fox, FS1 and Tubi \u2014 up from 3.588 million in 2022 and 2.77 million in 2018.<\/p>\n

Though Nielsen\u2019s viewership numbers give a window into the World Cup final\u2019s widespread popularity, it\u2019s a challenge to reflect how many people actually watched since some viewed the game in group settings such as watch parties. In 2025, Nielsen expanded its out-of-home measurement system<\/a> to try and get a more accurate count.<\/p>\n

Despite a few early hiccups<\/a>, stadium attendance was also strong throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have had a record number of spectators in the stadiums, almost 7 million,\u201d Infantino said. \u201cWe will have had, I mean the official figures will come out soon, but probably over 6 billion people watching it from home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The weather cooperated \u2014 usually<\/p>\n

Fans and players from other countries found out what Americans, Canadians and Mexicans have known for a long time \u2014 it can get pretty hot here<\/a> in the summer. Climate change<\/a> isn\u2019t helping matters.<\/p>\n

But Mother Nature could have been a lot meaner than she decided to be.<\/p>\n

Even so, there were a handful of games that featured particularly hot and muggy conditions. The best example was a knockout-round game between Paraguay and France on July 4 in Philadelphia when temperatures hovered around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius).<\/p>\n

The World Cup final on Sunday also dodged a potential problem when smoke from Canadian wildfires that wrapped the Northeast<\/a> in haze mostly cleared from the New Jersey area just in time thanks to some well-timed thunderstorms.<\/p>\n

Size doesn\u2019t matter<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s 48-team World Cup field was the biggest in the tournament\u2019s history and many thought it would water down<\/a> the competition.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n

Cape Verde<\/a> held eventual champion Spain to a draw in its opening game, advanced to the round of 32 and gave Argentina a scare before losing 3-2 in extra time in a World Cup classic. Congo also advanced beyond the group stage and pushed England<\/a> before eventually losing, while Cura\u00e7ao<\/a> was still in with a chance of making the knockouts going into its final group match.<\/p>\n

After those Cinderella stories, fans eventually got to enjoy semifinal games full of heavyweights. England, Argentina, Spain and France were the top four in the world rankings.<\/p>\n

Politics can\u2019t be ignored<\/p>\n

The World Cup is famously a petri dish for political conflict, and this year\u2019s version provided its share of strife.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s participation in the tournament amid the war in the Middle East<\/a> was a particularly thorny issue and the team had to move its base camp<\/a> from Arizona to Mexico. The Iranians\u2019 participation was overshadowed by travel complaints and visa issues, with the U.S. refusing visas to several members of Iran\u2019s delegation. <\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s relationship with Infantino was scrutinized after American striker Folarin Balogun\u2019s one-game ban for a red card was suspended<\/a> ahead of the team\u2019s round of 16 game against Belgium.<\/p>\n

Travel restrictions<\/a> for a series of countries prevented some fans from traveling to the U.S., but there were no reports of the aggressive immigration enforcement that some human rights groups had feared could take place around World Cup stadiums.<\/p>\n

Infantino brushed aside most of the controversies, instead focusing on the positives. While the FIFA president has a vested interest in painting a rosy picture of this year\u2019s World Cup, there\u2019s little doubt the tournament was a hit from a soccer perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have to invent a new vocabulary, new words to define the success of this World Cup,\u201d Infantino said. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Soccer Writer James Robson and AP Sports Writer Joe Reedy contributed to this story.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong during this summer\u2019s World Cup \u2014 a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7110,4027,23304,3937,4628,194,1385,3357,3358,22246,22171,154,332,247,1743,17,6551,396],"class_list":["post-58897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-ap-top-news","tag-argentina","tag-argentina-national-soccer-team","tag-canada","tag-central-america","tag-donald-trump","tag-erling-haaland","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-folarin-balogun","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-latin-america","tag-lionel-messi","tag-mexico","tag-soccer","tag-spain","tag-spain-national-soccer-team","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}