The FIFA men’s World Cup, not surprisingly, is drawing record-level television audiences, and there’s a not-so-secret factor that’s fueling the historic audiences: large-scale out-of-home viewership.
From small towns to big cities all across the U.S., watch parties have been a critical factor behind the unprecedented viewership of the tournament so far, and they are poised to be an even bigger driver during the ongoing knockout round.
Through the now-completed group stage, Fox saw its English-language World Cup audience soar 92% compared to 2022 to 5.05 million viewers, while Telemundo’s Spanish-language viewership increased 122% to an average of 4.6 million.
Watch Parties and Bars
Within that, out-of-home viewership represents about 25% of each network’s total, according to Nielsen data. While that percentage varies among individual matches, and in some cases has neared 40%, it has consistently remained among the strongest figures among all U.S. television programming.
“Pretty much every bar that you see has a game going, and it’s definitely made a big difference,” Nielsen SVP Brian Fuhrer tells Front Office Sports. “Across the board, the contribution from out-of-home to the World Cup figures has been quite significant.”
Early last year, Nielsen expanded its out-of-home audience measurement to cover the entire U.S., including more remote, rural areas. As a result, this World Cup is the first iteration of the tournament to see the impact of this enlargement.
“The 2022 World Cup, all 29 days, very neatly added up to about 100,000 years of [aggregate] viewing,” Fuhrer says. “This year, we crossed that level by Day 8.”
Before 2020, out-of-home measurements weren’t part of official Nielsen figures at all—sparking widespread outcry from leagues and networks that large chunks of the group viewing inherent to their fandom were being improperly omitted.
With those audiences now fully counted as part of Nielsen measurements, Fox and Telemundo have leaned in to promoting World Cup watch parties.
Great Expectations
Early next week, meanwhile, is set to provide more massive numbers for Fox and Telemundo. Mexico, by far the most popular World Cup team among Telemundo viewers in the U.S., will play a round-of-16 match Sunday against England that already appears to have the makings of an instant classic.
The U.S. men’s national team, meanwhile, will have its own round-of-16 clash Monday against Belgium after surviving a red card in a Wednesday win over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Similar to the Mexico-driven trends on Telemundo, the American team has by far posted the largest World Cup audiences so far on Fox.
Both of the upcoming matches air in primetime and are very well-positioned to draw NFL-type audiences.
“Telemundo’s obviously done a great job connecting with Hispanic audiences, and Fox’s been able to convey that this is a big tent and everyone’s welcome,” Fuhrer says.
