U.S. win in Round of 32 draws 33.5 million total viewers, on average

As the stakes increase, so will the ratings.

Wednesday night’s 2-0 win by the U.S. men’s team over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 2026 World Cup’s Round of 32 generated a record American audience of 33.5 million for the English and Spanish broadcasts.

On Fox and related properties, 24.4 million watched the match. For NBC, the telecast primarily on Telemundo and Peacock drew an average of 9.1 million viewers.

That’s the kind of audience a great NFL regular-season game draws. On Monday night, with the Round of 16 game between the U.S. and Belgium starting at 8:00 p.m. ET from Lumen Field in Seattle, the new record could already fall — and the U.S. games could begin to approach NFL postseason numbers.

Regardless, as long as the U.S. keeps winning, the audience will get larger and larger.

It sounds simple. The U.S. is three wins from getting to the final match. It will be anything but easy to pull it off.