​Welcome to Wednesday! What better way to unwind the World Cup rest day than to dive into the sports business? Spread the word—tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe! In today’s edition: America’s fixation on the other football, a breakdown of NBA exceptions, a multilingual dream job, ticket-market volatility, the business of extreme sports, and more.
Now, time to talk money. The USMNT’s World Cup campaign ended on a sour note after a disappointing exit Monday, leaving a bittersweet impression from a tournament that had shown immense promise. Yet the group’s legacy may be fueling a pigskin-obsessed nation to watch soccer with the fervor usually reserved for fall Sundays and Mondays. It isn’t what it seems, Roger—we’ve got this covered.
Are you ready for some fútbol? From the opening whistle against Paraguay, American audiences embraced this tournament like never before, setting viewership records for soccer broadcasts and then surpassing them again and again. As the American Outlaws swelled in numbers, viewership across Fox and Telemundo hit benchmarks once reserved for the NFL’s most prized games.
Group Stage Averages: Fox 17.1 million, Telemundo 7.1 million, Total 24.2 million. The opener against Paraguay briefly stood as the most-watched English-language World Cup telecast in U.S. history. The U.S. group-stage games averaged 24.2 million viewers, narrowly ahead of last season’s “Sunday Night Football” average of 23.5 million.
Round of 32: Fox 26.4 million, Telemundo 9.8 million, Total 36.2 million. The 2-0 win over Bosnia surpassed the group-stage record. The most comparable NFL game from last season was the Divisional Round clash between the Patriots and Texans, which averaged 38 million viewers and became ESPN’s most-watched event ever.
Round of 16: Fox 30.0 million, Telemundo 12.0 million, Total 42.0 million. It’s important to note these figures are preliminary and likely to rise when finalized; the Bosnia match, for instance, increased by about 8% from preliminary to final numbers, which would push the Belgium viewership beyond 45 million—on par with a Rams-Bears thriller on NBC.
Not just the U.S.: The surge isn’t limited to American audiences. Records are tumbling worldwide, even for non-USMNT games. Last Monday, the Netherlands versus Morocco drew 10.6 million viewers on Fox alone, becoming the most-watched English-language, non-USMNT, non-final World Cup broadcast in U.S. history—at least for three days. Thursday’s clash between Portugal and Croatia quickly rewrote the record books again, drawing 11.1 million viewers for a late chapter in Cristiano Ronaldo’s international career.