USMNT Game Sets US Soccer Viewership Record

Soccer has muscled its way into the heart of American TV, the Guardian reports. The US men's national team's World Cup win over Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday drew a combined 33.5 million viewers on Fox and Telemundo, early figures show—enough to set a new record for the most-watched English-language soccer broadcast in US history. (It was also the first knockout win for the US since 2002, Fox Sports reports.)

Fox averaged 24.4 million viewers, peaking at nearly 31.9 million, while Telemundo added 9.1 million across the match window. If Nielsen's final tally holds, the game would rank alongside the year's biggest US broadcasts, a list usually dominated by NFL playoff games, the Super Bowl, and the State of the Union. The surge caps a tournament of record audiences for US soccer (viewership has doubled since the 2022 World Cup, per the Hollywood Reporter) and sets up next Monday's USMNT clash with Belgium in Seattle as another potential milestone.