World Cup TV: USMNT-Belgium drew a record of nearly 46 million viewers 26%
By Jonathan Tannenwald22%
7/10/2026, 12:57:24 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 21 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Negativity Bias, and Appeal to Authority, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 30.6% saturation with 175 hits. Analysis detected 886 faulty-reasoning hits from 571 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 37.7% and a BS Rank of 26% (16,335 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 74.60% of the article peer group.
Though the U.S.-Belgium game didn't go well for the hosts, the audience that tuned in set a record for the most-watched soccer game in U.S. history.
Read more Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
by Jonathan Tannenwald
Published July 9, 2026, 8:57 p.m.
ET
The U.S. men’s soccer team set another viewership record in its loss to Belgium, despite the lopsided 4-1 defeat.
A combined total of 45.986 million viewers watched on Fox (33.006 million) and Telemundo (12.9 million), whether via traditional television or online streaming.
It is the biggest audience for a television event since Super Bowl LX, and not too far off this year’s NFL conference championship games.
The AFC matchup drew 48.6 million viewers, and the NFC drew 46.1 million.
Fox also said its audience alone was the biggest for any non-NFL broadcast since Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, when the Chicago Cubs ended their infamous championship drought.
That mark was previously held by this year’s college football national championship game, which drew 30.1 million viewers across a range of ESPN channels.
Fox noted that Philadelphia was the network’s No. 5 local ratings market for U.S.-Belgium, with a 14.22 rating and a 38 share.
That means around 38% of all households watching television at that time tuned in to the game.
It wasn’t lost on U.S. fans that the blowout score turned some casual viewers sour.
But the World Cup overall has continued to be a big deal, and that seems unlikely to change.
» READ MORE: The hype train of a ‘golden generation’ of U.S. players and their $6 million coach crashes out of the World Cup
England’s dramatic 3-2 win over Mexico on Sunday night drew an audience worth a Sunday night NFL game: 44.952 million viewers combined between Fox (21.752 million) and Telemundo (23.1 million, a network record for soccer).
That topped the U.S.-Bosnia round of 32 game, which held the record for a few days with a combined total of 36.195 million.
Earlier Sunday, Norway’s upset of Brazil in the Meadowlands drew 28.373 million viewers combined.
According to publicly-available data so far, 12 games this summer attracted audiences of over 20 million viewers across the two networks, including four in the round of 16: U.S.-Belgium, Mexico-England, Brazil-Norway, and Paraguay-France in Philadelphia on July 4 (22.924 million).
Data compiled by The Inquirer show that the top five soccer audiences in U.S. history, and seven of the top 10 , have all come during this World Cup.
We’ll see if the numbers grow again in the quarterfinals , which include a Saturday doubleheader of England vs.
Norway and Argentina vs.
Switzerland (5 and 9 p.m., Fox29 and Telemundo 62).
If all the favorites prevail, the semifinals would be France-Spain and England-Argentina.
The first of those would match two of the sport’s biggest superstars, Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal; the second would pit Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane against Lionel Messi in a renewal of one of soccer’s most famous rivalries.
» READ MORE: Meg Kane was the perfect face of Philly’s World Cup campaign.
Her family, and its tragedy, shaped her message.
I'm The Inquirer's soccer reporter, covering the Union, the U.S. men's and women's national teams, MLS, the NWSL, and Philadelphia's place in the world's game.
I also cover college basketball and the WNBA, as Philadelphia pursues an expansion team.
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