The FIFA World Cup final between Spain and Argentina is scheduled to be held on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. And one analyst projects that the match will shatter typical soccer viewership, matching NFL Championship-level audiences.

Manny Soloway of Awful Announcing believes that the final World Cup match is expected to draw roughly 48.3 million viewers in the United States, which would be in line with the NFL audience for the 2026 AFC and NFC Championship game. 

“For an American comparison, that audience would be in line with the 2026 AFC and NFC Championship Games, which averaged 48.6 million and 46.1 million viewers, respectively,” Manny Soloway of Awful Announcing wrote in his July 17 article. “Other than the NFL, very few television events in the United States reach that level of viewership.”

According to Soloway's July 17 report, the 2026 AFC and NFC Championship games averaged around 47.4 million viewers overall.

While the AFC Championship's New England Patriots vs. Denver Broncos game garnered 48.6 million viewers, the NFC's Seattle Seahawks vs. Los Angeles Rams game had 46.1 million viewers.

“With the final semifinal viewership not yet available, it is difficult to make a precise prediction,” Soloway wrote. “Assuming final semifinal audiences finish roughly 10% above the preliminary figures, the two semifinals would average approximately 25.9 million viewers.”

Despite the US and Mexico's elimination, the analyst projected that the FIFA World Cup final viewership will jump 86.5% from semifinal levels, based on past trends.

"Even in previous World Cups, the Final has consistently produced substantially larger audiences than the semifinals. In 2022, the semifinals averaged 11.03 million viewers before the Final jumped 130% to 25.32 million," Soloway pointed out.

Although the semifinal match viewership hasn't been revealed yet, Soloway’s projection is also backed by Fox's President of Insights & Analytics, Michael Mulvihill’s own prediction of 46 million viewers.

“Based on the FOX 'match window' number plus the reported TEL + Peacock number," Mulvihill’s X post read. "This is the official Twitter viewership pool. Accept no substitutes. I’ll go first: 46 million.”

While the United States viewership projection already places the FIFA World Cup final in rare NFL territory, the worldwide viewership is also expected to be massive.

Spain vs. Argentina final could rewrite World Cup TV history

Based on the projections by Business Stats, the 2026 World Cup final match is expected to reach a global audience of around 1.8 billion television viewers.

"For context, the 1.8 billion viewership projection would make the 2026 final approximately 14x more watched than Super Bowl LIX (127.7 million US viewers), illustrating the difference in global reach between American football and association football," per BusinessStats Research Desk.

These projections place the viewership of the Spain versus Argentina match above the previous 2022 World Cup final, which drew an estimated global audience of 1.5 billion people.

If these projections hold, the final could surpass the 2022 World Cup final to become the most-watched sporting event in history, as the World Cup continues to attract a global audience that few events can rival.

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Written by

Archana Ramakrishnan

Edited by

Arundhoti Palit