Yes, soccer is a mainstream American sport.
The World Cup games involving the U.S. team had large TV audiences. The rest of them did well, too.
Via Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, the 16 games played in the single-elimination Round of 32 averaged 16.9 million U.S. viewers, between the English-language broadcast on Fox and the Spanish-language version on Telemundo and Peacock.
Fox and FS1 contributed 9.5 million to the number. Telemundo and Peacock averaged 7.4 million.
The average for the Spanish broadcast was split equally between linear and streaming. A whopping 3.7 million on average watched the games on Peacock.
How high will the numbers go? It would be better, obviously, if the U.S. or Mexico had made it to the quarterfinals. Regardless, millions are watching the World Cup.
As the stakes increase and the number of games shrinks, the viewership could get to unprecedented numbers.
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