The 2026 World Cup has not even crowned a champion yet and it has already rewritten the American record books. The USA and Belgium round of 16 tie drew 30 million viewers on Fox alone, the most-watched soccer telecast in US history, with combined English and Spanish language viewing across Fox, Telemundo and Peacock reported at over 40 million. Mexico against England pulled a combined audience of 44.8 million. These are NBA Finals and World Series numbers, for soccer, in America.
The tournament numbers are spectacular, but the more important story for brands is the trend underneath them. This is not a four-week spike. US viewership of international soccer grew roughly 60 percent between 2018 and 2025, from 31.4 million to over 50 million Americans, according to Samford University's Sports Analytics Lab. The Premier League hit a record 36.2 million US viewers last season. MLS audiences have grown more than 50 percent since 2022. Four in ten American adults told Gallup they planned to watch this World Cup, the highest figure since the US last hosted in 1994.
Soccer's US fanbase is younger, more diverse and more digital than the audiences of the traditional American leagues, with Hispanic fans at the heart of the culture. They follow players across leagues and time zones, they live in highlights, group chats and creator content, and they were multi-screening long before the rest of the market caught up. It is the most social-first fanbase in American sport.
After the 1994 World Cup, the opportunity faded because there was nowhere for the new interest to go. That is not true this time. The infrastructure exists: MLS, a booming Premier League audience, Liga MX, the 2027 Women's World Cup and the 2028 LA Olympics all give this new fandom somewhere to live. The brands that win will not be the ones that bought a World Cup spot and disappeared. They will be the ones that stay in the conversation between the tournaments, through creators, culture and platform-native content.
That is exactly the work we do. From turning a Pepsi and Everton partnership into a viral social film, to building Pepsi's Fan Playbook around the Women's Euros, we help brands turn soccer's cultural moments into always-on connection. America just proved it will show up for soccer at unprecedented scale. Now brands have to prove they can show up for the fans.