Argentina’s victory at the 2022 World Cup Final on Sunday was also an epic win for Fox, which saw the biggest-ever audience for the FIFA event on the U.S. network with 16.8 million viewers.
That tally easily topped its previous record holder, the Italy vs. Brazil final in 1994 with 14.5 million viewers, per Nielsen data. It was also the most-watched men’s World Cup telecast in Fox history, rising from the already impressive 15.5 million viewers that tuned into the USA v. England match in the group stage of this year’s FIFA World Cup.
On the streaming side, Argentina’s defeat of France, led by star player Lionel Messi, was up 158% versus the comparable France-Croatia final of the 2018 World Cup, boasting an average minute audience (AMA) of 1.3 million across Fox Sports streaming platforms over 2018’s AMA of 496,081, according to Fox.
The Argentina-France game was the most-streamed FIFA World Cup match in Fox Sports history, and third most-streamed event beyond only Super Bowl LI and Super Bowl LIV.
Overall, streaming for the 2022 FIFA World Cup was up 19% for Fox versus 2018.
On Telemundo, the Spanish-language home for the FIFA World Cup in the U.S., more records were broken with Argentina’s win against France in the final.
Per NBCUniversal, Telemundo and Peacock drew a combined total audience delivery (TAD) of 9 million viewers for the final match, up 65% from the 5.5 million viewers for the France-Croatia final in 2018. That figure made it both the most-watched and most-streamed match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup Tournament for Telemundo.
Argentina’s win was also the streamed match in U.S media history regardless of language, per Telemundo, with an AMA of 3 million viewers.
