The final of the North American Gold Cup continental soccer competition, held between the US and Mexico, has set a new record in viewership. Despite the US team's 2-1 defeat by Mexico, the event drew an unprecedented audience in its host country.
The showpiece final was played at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas with a capacity of 72,220. The July 6 fixture attracted an average TV audience of 3.73 million viewers on heavyweight pay-TV broadcaster Fox. This figure represents a staggering increase of 239% from the previous Gold Cup final's average viewership of 1.1 million in 2023 (which did not feature the US). This makes it the most-watched English-language US Gold Cup telecast in tournament history.
Peak viewership and overall performance
The game reached its peak with an impressive count of 5.2 million viewers during its final stages after the US fell behind due to midfielder Edson Alvarez's winning goal. Fox’s suite of channels performed well throughout all matches at this year’s Gold Cup which includes Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 alongside their primary brand channel. These English language networks averaged around 474,000 viewers per game across all 31 matches, marking a 21% increase from their previous average viewer count across games during the 2023 edition.
This success made it the most-watched Gold Cup in Fox history overall - although this achievement was aided by tracking out-of-home viewership for the first time. The rivalry between national teams from both countries has always been a major ticketing draw as evidenced by over 70k fans attending NRG Stadium for this match alone! Now that it has also proven to be a strong TV draw, it bodes well for broadcasters in the US. This is especially significant as we are less than a year away from the 2026 FIFA World Cup which will be staged across the US, Mexico, and Canada.
Fox holds the US broadcast rights for this tournament and continued interest in both national teams will be crucial to secure tangible benefits from their reported $235 million investment in media rights paid to FIFA.
Previous successes and future expectations
During the 2022 World Cup held in Qatar, Fox secured record viewership for its coverage of four quarter-final fixtures. This was further surpassed by its coverage of the final match which attracted an audience of 16.8 million people despite time zone differences.
With a home World Cup on the horizon combined with more favorable viewership times, it is expected that these numbers could potentially be exceeded during the 2026 final. Spanish-language coverage of this event within America will be provided by NBCUniversal-owned Telemundo.
