Nearly 63 million Americans watched Spain defeat Argentina 1–0 in the FIFA World Cup final held in New Jersey, shattering the previous record of 22.3 million viewers set during the 2022 Qatar final and marking a historic milestone for a sport long overshadowed in the United States by American football, baseball, and basketball. The audience was split between Fox's English-language broadcast, which drew 38.9 million viewers, and Telemundo's Spanish-language coverage, which attracted 23.9 million. Several knockout-stage matches also outperformed recent U.S. sporting finals, with the England–Mexico Round of 16 game drawing roughly 45 million viewers — well above audiences for Game 7 of baseball's World Series or Game 5 of the NBA Finals — though figures still fell short of the Super Bowl's approximately 126 million viewers. Analysts attributed the surge to prime-time kickoff slots for American audiences, the co-hosting arrangement shared by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and the likely final World Cup appearances of generational stars Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The tournament also proved financially lucrative for broadcasters, with Fox alone expected to earn at least $250 million from newly introduced hydration-break advertising slots that divided matches into four segments, creating additional inventory for sponsors including PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Anheuser-Busch.