Remarkable FIFA World Cup Final matchup could draw big ratings

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Argentina-Spain FIFA World Cup Final carries great ratings potential

The 2026 FIFA World Cup across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada has certainly been a notable success on the television ratings front. The highest-water marks to date came with the host countries' exits in the Round of 16, but the numbers since then have continued to be impressive. And that paves the way for what could be quite a notable final Sunday (in progress, Fox/Telemundo/Peacock).

For the July 6-12 period, the top 16 spots in Nielsen's top 25 live sports telecasts were all held by World Cup broadcasts (of eight matches, separated by English and Spanish broadcasts on Fox networks and Telemundo/Peacock respectively). And as Jon Lewis writes at Sports Media Watch, this week's semifinals set American viewership records for World Cup matches not involving the U.S. team:

Yes, the event-to-event comparisons from the Qatar World Cup are going to favour this year's tournament. This one comes at the World Cup's traditional time of year with less sports competition, and it comes in a better time zone, with a lower (but not nil) amount of associated controversy, and with extra buzz from the U.S. hosting. There are also the Nielsen methodology changes with the shift to Big Data+Panel and with increased tracking of out-of-home viewing, which have benefited many sports and led to many of the records we've seen over the last 10 months. (The 2022 World Cup did get a out-of-home boost over previous editions, but even more out-of-home viewership is being tracked now.) Despite all that, though, the audiences for Argentina-England (16.9 million on Fox, 11.4 million on Telemundo/Peacock) and Spain-France (13.1 million on Fox, 9.8 million on Telemundo/Peacock are remarkable.

Those audiences (28.3 million and 22.9 million combined English and Spanish viewers for Argentina-England and Spain-France respectively) aren't close to the records of 44 million (Mexico-England) or 42 million (U.S.-Belgium) set in the Round of 16, and that's as expected; matches with the U.S. or Mexico simply draw more. But Argentina-England did post the best afternoon-slot viewership of the tournament for both Fox and Telemundo, beating the U.S.-Australia group stage game (16.2 million on Fox on the Juneteenth holiday) and the Mexico-South Korea group stage opener (10.1 million on Telemundo/Peacock on June 18). And on the English-language side alone, Argentina-England was in the top four non-U.S. World Cup matches ever, beating even past finals. The other three in the top four are all from this year's tournament as well: England-Norway in the quarterfinals (21.8 million), England-Mexico in the Round of 16 (21.7 million), and Argentina-Switzerland in the quarterfinals (18.2 million), all ahead of the 16.8 million for the Argentina-France final in 2022. Thus, while these late-stage matches haven't hit the highest highs that the U.S. and Mexican teams provided, they've been very good by any other standard.

And the final sets up very well for ratings from a matchup perspective. This has the top two teams by the June (pre-World Cup) world rankings, with Argentina first and Spain second there. And Argentina and Lionel Messi have been involved in many of those top-drawing matches, and the drama around this possibly being the last World Cup for the 39-year-old Messi will only add to that. But Spain are no slouches, either: they're the reigning European champions (from Euro 2024), and they have their own stars, including 19-year-old Yamine Lamal (who saw a lot of attention this week around a 2007 photo of Messi bathing him back when he was a baby, from a FC Barcelona charity calendar back then). It all seems to add up to a nice mix for ratings, and we'll see just how strong they wind up being. But a record for any match not involving the U.S. seems almost certain, and perhaps this can even challenge those Round of 16 heights.