Most watched football games in the United States - Dec.12-18, 2022

Topics: FIFA World Cup, Fox, Telemundo, Argentina, France, Lionel Messi

The FIFA World Cup final established an audience record for a football game in the U.S., but the heights reached by it were impressive even for experts.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup came to a spectacular end on Sunday, and fans across the United States were able to watch Lionel Messi triumph over the opposition in what turned out to be an electric match that gathered entire families of fans around their TV sets to follow the clash.

In fact, the game between La Albiceleste and Les Bleus became the most-watched game of the tournament and, needless to say, it also became the most-followed game of the year. The game had over seven rating points and over 16,7000,000 average viewers.

The runner-up spot this time went to France, who claimed that place by seeing their semi-final clash against Morocco earning over 6.5 million viewers. The third place went to the first semi-final, where La Albiceleste claimed a 3-0 win over Croatia en route to the final.

In terms of Spanish-speaking audiences, Telemundo scored big time with the defining games of the competition, earning over 5.5 million viewers during the title match, and closing in to 3 million viewers during the semi-final clash between Argentina and Croatia. The channel was also successful with their repeat broadcast of the final, which earned them almost a million viewers.

For the first time in five weeks, there were a couple of matches from othet competitions to make the cut. This week, two Copa por México matches earned the honor of entering this list, although none of them reached the audience levels the World Cup clashes claimed.

This is the full list of games that caught the most attention in the U.S. in the past week.

FOX

Tuesday, December 13

Argentina 3-0 Croatia at 1:42 p.m. ET

Average viewers: 6,466,000

Viewership rating: 2.59

Wednesday, December 14

France 2-0 Morocco at 1:43 p.m. ET

Average viewers: 6,592,000

Viewership rating: 2.79

Saturday, December 17

Croatia 2-1 Morocco at 9:45 a.m. ET