Monday night’s Round of 16 match between the U.S. and Belgium generate 42 million viewers, between Fox, Telemundo, and Peacock. And that wasn’t the biggest American TV audience of the week.
Via Richard Deitsch of Sports Business Journal, nearly 45 million watched England vs. Mexico on Sunday night.
The total figure comes from 23.1 million watching on Telemundo and Peacock, and 21.742 million watching on Fox. That’s a total of 44.842 million.
By way of comparison, the NFL’s AFC and NFC Championship games in January averaged 47.4 million viewers.
There’s no doubt about it. Soccer is a mainstream sport in the U.S. Even with the U.S. and Mexican team exiting, there could be come big numbers for the remaining seven matches.
Which explains why the U.S. TV deal for the 2030 World Cup is expected to spike from $485 million to as much as $2 billion.
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