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Credit: Telemundo
The first round of World Cup 2026 group-stage matches is in the books, and the on-field action has earned raves from viewers. Judging by the chatter I see on social media, though, the same can’t be said of the broadcasts.
This year marks the third time Fox has broadcast the World Cup in the United States, and in all that time, it doesn’t feel like the network has gotten any more sure-footed with soccer coverage. Fox’s flair for bombast, which works so well in NFL games, feels forced in soccer. This year, the addition of hydration breaks in each half has given Fox the opportunity to squeeze in more ads — and alienate a not-insignificant portion of its audience. And then there is the Alexi Lalas-shaped problem with Fox’s studio team, where the former U.S. player’s personality feels more off-putting than off-beat.
Of course, I’ve only heard about these issues with World Cup 2026 coverage. I’ve spent the first week of the tournament watching matches exclusively on Telemundo, and I couldn’t be happier with that decision.
Fox may hold the English-language rights to the World Cup telecasts in the U.S., but there are Spanish-language broadcasts, too, and those have fallen to Telemundo, which is owned by Comcast and thus available to stream via Peacock. And Peacock is really pushing the boat out for this World Cup — there’s a Copa Mundial hub, with every match Telemundo airs also appearing on the streaming service.
It doesn’t sound like I’m the only person turning to Telemundo if World Cup ratings are anything to go by.
While ratings have skyrocketed for both Fox and Telemundo, the Spanish-language channel is reporting higher average viewership for its telecasts. Through the June 14 matches, Telemundo has averaged 7.5 million viewers per match, compared to 6.66 million reported by Fox Sports. Last weekend’s marquee Brazil-Morocco match-up reached 11.2 million viewers via Telemundo, topping Fox’s 10.02 million tally. (Note: Telemundo’s data accounts for the match-only window, while Fox’s includes some pre-match coverage.)
Why people are watching Telemundo
I’m going to guess that Telemundo’s World Cup viewing audience isn’t composed entirely of Spanish speakers — I’m certainly not. But relying on Telemundo’s coverage of the tournament addresses many of the problems people seem to have with Fox’s coverage.
Take the hydration breaks, for example, where Fox cuts away to commercials (and, not coincidentally, makes a tidy profit from that decision). That’s not an issue at Telemundo, which sticks with coverage during the FIFA-mandated break. Ads may appear on the screen, but Telemundo either focuses on the players huddling up — where you can see things like Canada coach Jesse Marsch exhorting his team to mount a comeback against Bosnia and Herzegovina — or shows replays of key action from earlier in the game. Whatever Telemundo chooses to air, there’s certainly no risk of missing the match’s restart, like there has been with Fox.
Because Telemundo is an old hand at soccer broadcasts — it airs Liga MX matches, Spanish-language Premier League broadcasts, and U.S. National Team friendlies — you feel like you’re in good hands with the network. That isn’t always the case on Fox, which never seems to be sure if it’s broadcasting a soccer match or hosting an open mic night at HarDeHarHars for its on-air talent.
As a result, perhaps the greatest argument for Telemundo’s coverage over Fox’s is this: Alexi Lalas no está aquí.
Watching the World Cup en español
Admittedly, the language barrier might be a problem for soccer fans who fear they’d tune in to Telemundo only to find they can’t understand what the announcers are saying. I haven’t found that to be a problem, and it’s not like I’m anywhere close to fluent in Spanish. I haven’t studied the language since high school, so the only way I’m going to know what Luis Omar Tapia is saying is if he interrupts his play-by-play to start giving me directions to la biblioteca — and even then, he’s going to have to say it very slowly for me to follow along.
And yet, I haven’t run into any major issues following matches on Telemundo. Maybe it’s because I’m the father of a teenager and therefore perfectly at home only getting the bare gist of what someone’s telling me. Or — and I think this is key — because I can see what’s going on, the play-by-play becomes more of an ambient part of the broadcast rather than an essential element for following the action. If there’s a rather complicated explanation for a referee’s decision, then yes, I’m going to miss out on the finer points, and I see how that might dissuade English-speaking viewers. But again, this issue hasn’t really come up through the early stages of Telemundo’s World Cup coverage.
It definitely helps that Telemundo’s announcing team is made up of people who are old hands at covering international soccer tournaments. And even if the actual words they’re saying are far beyond my beginner’s grasp of Spanish, the cadence and tenor of their voices are so tied to the on-field play, I get a very good sense of when something significant is developing.
Giving Fox’s coverage a try
Whether it was fear of missing out or a rigorous commitment to fairness, I decided to emerge from my Telemundo cocoon one day to see what Fox’s World Cup coverage had to offer. And as the picture flickered on to reveal Rob Stone chatting with Clarence Seedorf and Peter Schmeichel outside Arrowhe… er… Kansas City Stadium, my heart momentarily soared. Had I gotten lucky and tuned into Fox on Alexi Lalas’ day off? Was Fortune going to smile on me that broadly?
Alas, no — this was just a segment to hype up the evening’s Argentina-Algeria match. Instead, coverage quickly cut back to the Fox Studio where Zlatan Ibrahimovic was revealing his list of “lions,” or his top-ranked players where naturally he listed himself as No. 1. The segment appeared to serve the dual purposes of suggesting that Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe are all very good at soccer — even if not of Zlatan-quality — and to let Zlatan and Alexi Lalas bicker like some intercontinental version of First Take.
At another point in my Fox-watching experience, we cut to Jameis Winston, who is apparently a correspondent at the World Cup on what I can only assume is a dare. He was hanging out with a group of Argentina fans and a goat because, as he explained, Lionel Messi was the real GOAT. Fox cut to a Taco Bell commercial before the former No. 1 draft pick could expound further on that thesis.
If Fox’s between-match programming didn’t do much to persuade me that I had made a mistake getting my World Cup coverage exclusively from Telemundo, maybe the network’s broadcast of the actual matches might make me reconsider my viewing habits. And in fairness, there was nothing to complain about in the Norway-Iraq match I watched on Fox, at least until those unnecessary water-break commercials kicked in and I was treated to multiple ads in a row featuring David Beckham. The match commentary from Ian Crocker and Danny Higginbotham didn’t strike me as particularly inspired, but at least it was in a language I can more or less speak.
The Verdict: Telemundo takes the World Cup
Still, once the Austria-Jordan match came on later that night, I darted back to Telemundo faster than Messi turned Rodrigo De Paul’s pass into the first of his three goals. Telemundo seems to understand we’re tuning in to watch a soccer match, not a production number that requires a big introduction package narrated by Andy Garcia. The decision to keep the camera on the field during hydration breaks shows that Telemundo understands it’s playing to an audience of soccer fans, not random eyeballs for the next ad break.
But really, my decision to set my TV to Telemundo and throw away the remote for the duration of the World Cup boils down to this: I may not always understand what the announcers on that channel are saying, but I understand what Fox is trying to tell me all too well.
The post How I learned how to stop worrying about Fox’s World Cup coverage and start watching Telemundo appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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