2018 World Cup TV Ratings Are Down 44% From 2014
- Without U.S. team to root for, audience fails to tune in
- Fox already lowered audience projections for advertisers
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Through the first round of games in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, TV viewership from the U.S. has dropped about 44 percent compared with the last tournament in 2014, according to data from Nielsen.
The drop is consistent across English-language broadcasts on Fox and the Spanish-language broadcasts on NBCUniversal’s Telemundo. Games on Fox have averaged 1.98 million viewers, compared with 3.55 million on ESPN in 2014. Telemundo’s games have drawn an average audience of 1.87 million viewers, down from 3.3 million on Univision four years ago.