The finales of two major continental soccer tournaments brought in big TV audiences on Sunday.
Both Fox and Univision set records for their telecasts of the Euro 2024 final between Spain and England and the Copa America final, featuring Argentina and Colombia. Spain-England drew a combined 9.43 million viewers Sunday afternoon, and in primetime, Argentina’s victory over Colombia averaged 11.63 million across the two networks.
Fox topped 6 million viewers for both contests: Spain’s 2-1 victory over England averaged 6.43 million viewers, and the Copa America final came in at 6.02 million. Outside of World Cup matches, the two finals are the most-watched soccer telecasts ever on Fox. (Both figures include pre- and post-game coverage as well as the on-field action; by themselves, the matches are likely to top 7 million viewers each.)
Univision’s Spanish-language broadcast of the Euro final added 3 million viewers, and the Copa America coverage clocked in at 5.2 million. For the latter, Univision says the match window drew 6.35 million viewers — the largest audience for any Univision program since the 2014 World Cup final.
Both networks also saw big increases for the two tournaments as a whole. Fox Sports‘ Euro coverage averaged 1.68 million viewers on Fox and FS1, up 34 percent from ESPN and ABC’s average of 1.25 million for the 2021 tournament. Copa America, which featured the U.S., Mexico and Canada national teams and was played in the United States, averaged 1.42 million viewers across Fox, FS1 and FS2. Both are the biggest English-language audiences ever for the two competitions.
Univision 1.86 million viewers for its Copa America coverage, which accounted for 15 of the top 20 telecasts on Spanish-language television so far this year. TelevisaUnivision’s streaming platform Vix also got a boost, with the Copa America and Euro tournaments driving 30 million hours of viewing there.
