The expanded World Cup begins Thursday, and U.S. broadcasters are treating it like a new season of television: 104 matches, 48 nations, five weeks and distribution spread across broadcast, cable and streaming.
Two-thirds of those games will air on the Fox broadcast network, the remainder on FS1, and every match will be available on Fox One; free streamer Tubi will carry select live matches as well as shoulder and Cup-themed programming. Telemundo, which holds rights through 2030, will use games as lead-ins on both linear television and its streaming platforms.
Those numbers matter because the tournament is nearly double the size of the 2022 men's World Cup in Qatar, which featured 32 nations and 64 matches. For U.S. rights holders, more matches means more live inventory to program across multiple channels for five straight weeks — and a much larger volume of daily sports television than viewers saw four years ago.
Fox is leaning into production upgrades to fill that inventory. The network says its Los Angeles hub, a revamped Stage B with an LED augmented-reality wall, will power studio shows and that its studio cameras will deliver the first World Cup in high-dynamic range. "The biggest production Fox Sports has ever put on in our company’s history," Zac Kenworthy said, adding that the event "will allow us to delve in deeper to the matches, to talk about the game in different ways, present the game in different ways."
Telemundo is taking a different tack: using soccer as a funnel into non-sports programming. The Spanish-language broadcaster averaged 2.6 million viewers per match in 2022 and will try to turn those audiences into lead-ins for dramas and variety shows throughout the tournament.
Streaming is more than a convenience this year. Tubi’s free streams and Fox One’s blanket availability of every match expand reach, while Peacock is adding features aimed at soccer fans. "All of the folks that we have watching soccer, we do have ‘next play’ within Peacock, which is another very, very important feature," Joaquin Duro said, highlighting a viewing tool designed to keep audiences engaged between matches.
And yet, the expansion is not universally celebrated. FIFA’s decision to nearly double the tournament has drawn criticism for diluting competitive quality and compressing a global event into a schedule that some argue favors quantity over marquee matchups. Still, for U.S. rights holders the math is simple: more matches equal more time to sell and more chances to build audience habits across platforms.
Last tournament benchmarks give reason for cautious optimism. Fox averaged 3.6 million viewers per match in 2022 and scored a record 16.8 million viewers for Argentina’s final win over France. But whether those per-match averages hold, rise or fall across 104 fixtures — many of them early group-stage games with lower-profile teams — is the central commercial unknown heading into Thursday.
Practical viewing notes before kickoff: the tournament plays in 16 North American cities and this is the first World Cup in North America since 1994; the U.S. opens its world cup group stage at Los Angeles Stadium ( Fans should expect matches to rotate across Fox and FS1, be available on Fox One, with select windows on Tubi and stream-centric features on Peacock for those chasing simultaneous games or alternate feeds.
The five-week tournament will answer the immediate programming question — can the extra matches sustain or grow audiences across broadcast, cable and new streaming slots? How many viewers the expanded format actually delivers for Fox, Telemundo and their streaming platforms is the decisive question the opening day cannot settle, and the answer will shape how U.S. broadcasters value the World Cup for years to come.
