It's still early but the 2022 FIFA World Cup is already making its mark on history.
For the first time, the World Cup is being held in the Middle East, with Qatar serving at hosts. Additionally, due to the dangerously high temperatures Qatar has during the summer months, the 22nd edition of the World Cup is being played in November and December to accommodate this.
What makes this tournament even more interesting is the fact that despite the early start times for those based in North America, it appears to have no impact on viewership, especially among Spanish-language viewers.
Indeed, over the course of the first two days, Telemundo had an average of nearly three million (2.6 to be exact) viewers tuning into the first four matches, which included the competition opener featuring Qatar vs. Ecuador, followed by an action-packed Monday that started with England's 6-2 rout of Iran, before the Netherlands scored two late goals to beat Senegal 2-0 and the USMNT and Wales played to a thrilling one-all draw. Not surprisingly, the USMNT-Wales clash had an average of 3.4 million viewers tuning in at various points during the match alone. Meanwhile, England-Iran, which kicked off at 8 AM EST had an average of 1.2 million viewers, while the Senegal-Netherlands tie had an average of 1.9 million viewers.
This is quite noteable, as the first two days of the 2018 FIFA World Cup four years ago had an average of 1.5 million viewers tuning in, and thus the 2022 version has seen a whopping 72 per cent increase in just the first two days in terms of viewership.
Largely due to the huge interest in the USMNT-Wales game, Monday's three matches had an average of 2.1 million viewers tuning in at various points over the course of the day, which is 42 per cent higher than the approximate 1.5 million who followed the three matches played on June 15th back at the 2018 edition of this competition.
Telemundo and Peacock's digitial streaming platforms made history, as the USMNT-Wales game recorded at least 1 million viewers tuning in for various stretches of the game during that tie. Viewership for the 2022 opener featuring Qatar and Ecuador averaged about 4.0 million which is a massive 164 per cent increase compared to the 2018 World Cup's opening match that saw Saudi Arabia suffer a rather humiliating 5-0 loss to the hosts. Live streaming for the Qatar-Ecuador tie saw over 830,000 fans tune in at various points, which helped to set a record for the most live-streamed game in Spanish-language history at the World Cup.
Due to the popularity of the ongoing 2022 FIFA World Cup, Peacock secured the top spot in terms of free app downloads for iOS users from Sunday through Tuesday.
Finally, during the USMNT-Wales tie, Telemundo became the number one Spanish-language network in several major regions throughout the United States, including New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Orlando, Sacramento, Tampa, and San Francisco, while it was the number two in Phoenix and the overall most followed network (both Spanish and English) in Miami.
