• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Although the FIFA World Cup event is being promoted as a major sporting event for the year in North America, surveys show the percentage of U.S. viewer interest remains low compared to other countries.

Only 13% of U.S. respondents said they would plan to watch the World Cup, according to a survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence -- in contrast to other countries, which range between 28% and 43%. For example, 30% of respondents in France and 47% in the U.K. plan to watch the event.

Research comes from a survey conducted in 2025 and 2026, with 1,000 online adults in Europe and Asia-Pacific markets and 2,500 in the U.S. 

The good news for U.S. brands is that U.S. World Cup viewers lead all nations when it comes to daily media consumption -- averaging 5.8 hours of TV and online video, 3.5 hours of audio, and 2.8 hours of gaming.

Total U.S advertising spend for the 2022 FIFA World Cup amounted to $282 million on Fox Sports/Telemundo, according to estimates from iSpot.

With the games set in North American markets, national TV advertising is projected to double for the 2026 event.

For the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the Fox Television Network averaged a Nielsen-measured 5.1 million viewers for the 36 matches, with FS1 (Fox Sports 1) at 1.5 million.

For Spanish-language linear television and streaming broadcasts (Telemundo and Universo), the total was was 2.5 million for 64 matches.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup Final between Argentina and France had a total of 25.8 million viewers across combined English and Spanish linear television and digital streaming platforms.