U.S. World Cup win sets domestic ratings record
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- U.S. Women's National Team defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 in Santa Clara, California, advancing to the round of 16 — its first knockout-round win since 2002.
- Fox Sports broadcast drew 24.4 million average viewers with a peak audience of 31.8 million, making it the most-watched soccer telecast in English-language TV history.
- The telecast surpassed the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup final, which had held the previous English-language soccer record at 22.3 million viewers.
- For scale, the 2025 Super Bowl between the Eagles and Chiefs averaged 127.7 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes, Telemundo and Tubi — more than five times this match's audience.
- The recent Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals averaged 20.6 million viewers on ABC and ESPN, its highest mark since 1998 but still below the U.S.-Bosnia match.
- The Mexico-Ecuador World Cup match drew the tournament's largest combined U.S. audience at 29.3 million viewers so far.
Why it matters: The 24.4 million average for a Women's World Cup round-of-16 match beat the previous English-language soccer record — the 2015 Women's World Cup final — by more than 2 million viewers, signaling that women's soccer has crossed into mainstream American sports scale. Fox Sports and advertisers now have proof that women's national team games rival NBA Finals audiences, strengthening the commercial case for continued broadcast investment in the sport.
