England v USA was the most watched men’s football match in the USA ever

World Cup 2022

FIFA has the viewing figures from the World Cup up until 1 December.

Among the notable figures mentioned, England’s 0-0 draw with the USA became the most watched men’s football match in the USA ever. A peak audience of 19.65 million tuned into watch the English language broadcast on Fox.

Elsewhere, an average audience of 36.37 million in Japan saw their country’s defeat to Costa Rica, an increase of 10 million on the team’s opening match against Germany and 74% higher than the average domestic group stage audience during the 2018 World Cup.

In South Korea, 11.14 million watched its tournament opener against Uruguary - 18% higher than the average for group stage matches at Russia 2018. In Spain, 65% of people watching TV saw La Roja take on Germany. 11.9 million was the combined audience across coverage on La1 and GOL Mundial, exceeding the audience of any group stage game for 2018. 

For the Netherlands, 76.6% of the TV audience watched the Dutch’s 1-1 draw with Ecuador - the highest TV audience in the country in 2022 and greater than any match at the 2018 World Cup. An average audience of 11.6 million and peak of 14.56 million watched France defeat Denmark on TF1, up from 14 million for Les Bleu’s match against Australia.

5.35 million watched at least one minute of Portugal’s game with Uruguay - the highest ever audience for a World Cup match in the country. This was an audience share of 69.5%.

In Mexico, coverage of El Tri’s defeat to Argentina saw 20.96 million watch across the three channels broadcasting it, an audience share of 67.9% and higher than any match in 2018. The same match in Argentina had an average audience of 8.48 million - an audience share of 81.3%.

Finally, Canada’s match against Croatia had an average audience of 4.33 million, which was an audience share 68.4%.

The World Cup has also been drawing large audiences, as expected, in the UK. England’s game against Iran was the most streamed event on iPlayer ever, Spain v Germany had 9.9 million tune in, and England’s clash with Wales had 18.7 million watch across all BBC platforms.