The United States men’s national team was knocked out of the World Cup on Monday night after a rough showing against Belgium.
The match, however, still drew a massive audience and set an all-time soccer record in the United States.
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Fox announced on Tuesday that 30 million people tuned in to watch the United States fall to Belgium 4-1 in Seattle. The audience peaked at just shy of 37 million people, too. That made it the most-watched soccer telecast in American history.
By comparison, the NBA Finals earlier this summer averaged more than 20 million viewers on ABC and ESPN, which made it the most-watched NBA Finals since 1998. The deciding Game 5 of that series averaged 24.5 million viewers.
Belgium cruised to a three-goal win on Monday at a sold-out Lumen Field in Seattle, which pushed them into the quarterfinals. The United States won its group and won a knockout stage game for the first time since 2002, but largely fell flat on Monday in a sloppy contest. Christian Pulisic struggled before leaving early with a leg injury, and Folarin Balogun — who was thrown into a controversy with FIFA and President Donald Trump in recent days after his red card in the first knockout stage game — didn’t impact the contest much at all.
“Today wasn’t a good day,” midfielder Tyler Adams said after the loss. “It stings. This was a moment to have the opportunity to advance and really try and do something special.
“We fell short.”
The World Cup final in 2022 drew about 16.8 million viewers on Fox in 2022 when Argentina beat France in Qatar. FIFA, however, estimates that the final match in that tournament reached more than 1.4 billion people worldwide and had a live audience of more than 570 million.
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Belgium and Spain will square off in Southern California in the quarterfinals next on Friday.
