England vs Mexico draws 45 million US viewers — more than USA's own World Cup exit

England’s last-16 win over Mexico at the Azteca Stadium drew a peak US audience of nearly 45 million viewers on Sunday evening, outstripping the viewership for the United States’ own World Cup elimination the following day.

According to NBC Sports, the England-Mexico match attracted 23.1 million viewers on Telemundo and Peacock combined, plus a further 21.742 million on Fox, for a total of 44.842 million. That figure eclipsed the 42 million who tuned in to watch Belgium dismantle Mauricio Pochettino’s USA side 4-1 in their round-of-16 tie.

The US game carried its own extraordinary pre-match narrative after Donald Trump intervened with FIFA president Gianni Infantino to have a red card ban rescinded for striker Folarin Balogun, a story that dominated the build-up and raised awareness of the fixture considerably.

Context matters with both numbers. England are consistently one of the most-followed nations among American football fans outside of the US national team, and their encounter with Mexico has been widely described as a World Cup classic. The USA, meanwhile, had built genuine momentum through a strong group stage and a round-of-32 victory over DR Congo before their tournament ended.

Nevertheless, the figures represent a striking benchmark for the sport’s growth in North America. Both matches came close to the average viewership of the NFL’s AFC and NFC Championship games, which drew around 47 million viewers each in January.

Growing football’s footprint in the United States was one of FIFA’s central ambitions for the 2026 tournament, and with seven knockout matches still to play, the early returns are encouraging for the governing body — even as all three co-hosts, the US, Mexico and Canada, have now been eliminated.

Looking further ahead, television rights negotiations for the 2030 World Cup are already underway, with US broadcasters expected to pay around $2 billion to air the tournament — a dramatic increase on the approximately $485 million deal in place for the current edition.