15.5 million watch US-Iran on FOX and Telemundo

Christian Pulisic’s game-winning goal sent the United States through to the Second Round of the World Cup. The game also gave US broadcasters FOX Sports and Telemundo a boost. So much so that US-Iran averaged 15.5 million viewers across both broadcast partners and their streaming services, including Peacock Premium.

USA’s 1-0 victory was the second most-watched USA game during the World Cup thus far. Black Friday’s USA-England game was watched by 19.9 million across FOX and Telemundo.

Expectations are that this Saturday’s game between Netherlands-USA could set a new record. The previous English-language US TV record for a men’s game is USA-Portugal in 2014 with 18.2 million viewers on ESPN.

More details about US-Iran viewership numbers

FOX Sports are reporting viewing numbers of 12.013 million for US-Iran across FOX and streaming. Of that number, 959,004 streamed the game via the FOX Sports app.

To date, FOX Sports are averaging 3.145 million viewers per World Cup 2022 game through the first 31 games played. That’s up 44% compared to World Cup 2018. However, it’s important to note that the US Men’s National Team did not qualify for Russia 2018.

Over on Spanish-language network Telemundo, they once again saw a massive audience watching a World Cup game on streaming. Of the 3.5 million viewers who watched across Spanish-language television and streaming, 1.1 million of them streamed the game. US-Iran was available via Peacock Premium, and the Telemundo Deportes app.

Telemundo reports that the US-Iran viewership is the 11th World Cup match to exceed 3 million viewers, more than doubling their numbers from World Cup 2018 through the same number of matches.

Group B’s other final game

In the other game in Group B, the Wales-England game drew a peak audience of 18.7 million viewers on BBC television and streaming. It’s the most-watched World Cup game of the Qatar competition so far for British broadcasters.

Photo credit: IMAGO / Agencia MexSport