World Cup group-stage ratings rival NBA and MLB playoff averages

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More viewership data from the 2026 FIFA World Cup is in, and the tournament continues to be a strong draw in the United States.

Fox Sports announced that the Argentina-Algeria match on Tuesday averaged 9.08 million viewers, peaking at 10.53 million from 9:30 to 9:45 p.m. ET. In Spanish on Telemundo and Peacock, the match averaged 8.6 million viewers. Both numbers are good enough to rank as the second-most-watched group-stage match in their respective languages’ histories.

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Final audience numbers for Day 6 of the FIFA World Cup

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are in. The momentum continues.

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Argentina delivered its most-watched FIFA World Cup

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Group Stage match ever on Spanish-language television when not facing Mexico. pic.twitter.com/PzvTCastvZ

— NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises (@NBCUTelemundo) June 19, 2026

Lionel Messi’s first @FIFAWorldCup#HatTrick, Argentina’s 3-0 win over Algeria in Group play delivers second-most-watched FIFA Men’s non-USMNT Group Stage telecast in English-language history with 9,082,000 viewers Tuesday on FOX

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pic.twitter.com/NNlm0o26hp

— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) June 18, 2026

Combined, Argentina-Algeria is the fourth-most-watched group-stage match of the tournament. Impressively, there have been five matches with a combined viewership of more than 17 million viewers, and the United States has only played one game.

The World Cup also saw strong viewership for other matches on Tuesday. France-Senegal averaged 5.07 million viewers on Fox and 4.9 million on Telemundo and Peacock. In Spanish, that was good enough to become France’s second-most-watched group-stage match in history.

Iraq-Norway scored 5.91 million viewers on Fox, in addition to 4.8 million in Spanish. Austria-Jordan averaged 2 million viewers in Spanish. An English-language viewership number was unavailable.

In English, excluding Austria-Jordan, matches on Fox Sports are averaging 6.19 million viewers. For comparison, the 2026 NBA playoffs averaged 6.35 million viewers for all games, the 2026 MLB postseason averaged 6.33 million viewers, and the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs averaged 1.8 million viewers.

The strong audiences for non-marquee games in both English and Spanish suggest that World Cup viewership can only really go up as the tournament continues to build. Countries like England, France, Argentina, and Brazil have proved in the first week that they are casual audience draws.

All the pieces are in place for NFL-like regular-season numbers in this year’s World Cup knockout games. If the USMNT continues to play well and advances deep into the tournament, the sky is the limit for potential viewership.

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