Fox/Telemundo Crack Soccer Viewership Record With U.S.-Japan

Fox and Telemundo finished with a combined 26.7 million viewers for the U.S.-Japan FIFA Women’s World Cup final last night, marking the most-viewed soccer match ever on U.S. TV. The match passes the '14 men’s World Cup final, which saw ABC and Univision draw 26.5 million viewers for Germany-Argentina. Fox finished with 25.4 million viewers for its telecast last night, passing last year’s U.S.-Portugal World Cup group stage match (18.22 million viewers) as the most-viewed English-language soccer telecast ever in the U.S. The ’99 WWC final on ABC – featuring U.S.-China – now ranks third with 17.98 million viewers.

Telemundo on its own drew 1.27 million viewers for last night’s U.S.-Japan match, marking the best Spanish-language WWC match ever, but well below the 9.2 million viewers for Germany-Argentina last year.