Expanded World Cup Gives Fox Big TV Win For Summer 2026

The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup will be the biggest one yet.

Beyond its return to North America and its massive NFL stadiums for the first time since 1994, the 2026 World Cup will also feature the largest field the event has ever had, with a record 48 countries participating (up from 32 previously).

The impetus behind the shift is, of course, money — and specifically, valuable TV inventory. iSpot data shows that the 2022 Men’s World Cup accounted for over 5% of all est. national linear TV ad spend during its relocated November-to-December timeframe. And that was when it was 32 teams and up against the NFL, college football, NBA, NHL and the holiday season.

Next year, with the World Cup brought back to its typical summer spot, there’s more teams and more matches, AND less competition for audience eyeballs since the WNBA and MLB would be the biggest active sports (MLS will be off during the entirety of the event next year).

Add in the fact that there’s no timezone juggle for American audiences this time, and Fox is incredibly well-positioned to have a stranglehold on domestic TV viewers next summer.

This week’s news only reinforced that fact.

Fox Sports announced that a record 69 World Cup matches would be broadcast live on Fox from June 11-July 19 (an average of nearly two per day), while another 35 will appear on Fox Sports 1. The Athletic points out that during the 2022 World Cup, just 30 matches appeared on Fox, with 60 on FS1. Some of that is a result of Fox’s crowded fall schedule with football. Having U.S. venues play host for much of the 2026 event helps generate more buzz next year as well.

The summer surge is a welcome one for a network whose TV ad reach usually leans significantly toward September through January (and February when it has the Super Bowl, too). iSpot’s recent Q3 report highlights that the network was No. 7 by share of household TV ad reach, but that’s buoyed by September’s football slate. By comparison, Fox is No. 19 by ad impressions share from June 1-Aug. 31, with over 16% of that coming from MLB action.

It’s reasonable to project that will not be the case next summer with so many World Cup matches appearing on Fox, and even more knockout round action than ever before.

While the recent World Cup format has featured a significant amount of group play, and various matchups without real stakes or competitiveness, an expanded tournament eliminates some of those concerns.

The new knockout round format will feature 32 teams; double the previous number, and as many teams as used to be included in the entire World Cup. More groups means a wider spread of the best teams, which should fuel more competitiveness between teams in the middle of the pack.

A larger schedule of games is also likely to keep audiences more engaged through soccer’s limited ad breaks. If every match feels like it “matters” more, then halftime and postgame blocks — where there are ad breaks, unlike what we see during live gameplay — become greater beacons for audience attention.

The other element, of course, is the power of having the U.S. Men’s National Team playing games IN the U.S., and the interest that brings for diehard and casual soccer fans alike.

While U.S. World Cup viewership is understandably higher when the country’s team is involved in matches, home teams also typically fare well (or better than their ranking would suggest) when hosting the event. So a U.S. team that’s good enough on paper to reach the round of 32 or round of 16 perhaps pushes into the quarterfinals instead because they’re in front of home crowds and traveling within their own country.

That’s the hope for Fox, anyway. In 2022, USA vs. England set soccer TV ratings records for a group-stage match. Bigger stakes could — and should — make for even bigger audience returns this time around.

Whether the U.S. team outperforms expectations, however, is less the story for Fox than how it will be able to own the sports calendar during a time of year that’s typically less busy for the network. And given the plan here to blitz its broadcast network with matches, that fact already seems assured.