July 24, 2026
JAMES LANG/Reuters Connect via USA Today
Preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research shows Philadelphia's World Cup TV viewership increased significantly compared with four years ago. Above, a photo of the match between Ivory Coast and Ecuador at Lincoln Financial Field on June 14.
Philadelphia's turn as a World Cup host city this summer has been billed as a resounding success, and the early figures on TV ratings for the tournament show the region has growing interest in watching soccer.
Nielsen's preliminary audience measurement for the Philadelphia market captured significant gains for the 2026 World Cup compared with four years ago. The data and analytics firm recorded the total minutes viewed on average per game in each round of the tournament on local Fox affiliates. All of Nielsen's data in Philly comes from World Cup matches viewed on FOX29. The numbers do not include viewership from Telemundo, the Spanish-language carrier of World Cup matches.
In the group stage this year, the Philly market averaged 22.7 million minutes watched per match — about 31% higher than four years ago when the tournament was played in Qatar. Philly averaged 39.2 million minutes watched per match in the round of 32 this year and 54.7 million minutes watched in the round of 16, which is a 133% increase over an average of 23.5 million minutes viewed for the round of 16 in 2022.
Philly had bumps in TV viewership for the six matches that were played at Lincoln Financial Field. The group stage match between Brazil and Haiti on June 19 recorded 36.5 million total minutes watched on FOX29, which was 61% higher than the average group stage viewership in Philly. The round of 16 match between France and Paraguay on July 4 recorded 66 million minutes viewed on FOX29, good for 21% higher than the rest of the round.
Nielsen did not immediately have local viewership numbers for Team USA's loss to Belgium in the round of 16, a match that drew more than 30 million total viewers nationally for the English-language broadcast and about 12 million on Telemundo. Local data in Philadelphia is still being compiled for the final between Spain and Argentina and the third-place matchup between England and France.
Despite the bump in World Cup viewership in Philly, the city's ratings ranked outside the top 15 markets this year, according to Nielsen's data from Fox. The top TV market was Kansas City, followed by Boston, Austin, San Francisco and Dallas. Both Philly and New York/East Rutherford, which hosted the Spain-Argentina final, landed outside the top 15 in TV viewers for Fox and were behind every other World Cup host city in the country for the English-language broadcasts, Nielsen's data shows.
Calculating exact viewership figures can be difficult when factoring in watch parties and other group settings.
Fox said its broadcast of the Spain-Argentina final drew an average 38.94 million viewers in the United States with a peak of 58.69 million. That claimed the record for the most-watched English-language soccer telecast in U.S. history. Telemundo recorded preliminary viewership of 22.6 million for the Spanish telecast of the final.
Last year, Nielsen adjusted its out-of-home measurement formula to improve its audience metrics. The firm estimates an average of 66.4 million total viewers watched Spain's victory over Argentina across Fox and Telemundo, smashing the previous record of 26.7 million U.S. viewers when Germany defeated Argentina in the 2014 final.
Fox paid $485 million for U.S. rights to the World Cup in 2026. Along with Telemundo, the World Cup is projected to pull in about $850 million in advertising revenue for the broadcasters, according to Yahoo Sports.
In Philly, the World Cup quarterfinals saw an average of 59.8 million total minutes watched on FOX29 before a slight dip to 55.8 million total minutes watched in the semifinals. That was up from 23.5 million total minutes watched in the 2022 quarterfinals and 19.3 million total minutes watched in the 2022 semifinals.
In terms of attendance, FIFA has said Philly's World Cup matches brought 409,894 fans from over 190 countries and territories into the stands for the six matches played at Lincoln Financial Field.
