Fox Sports' Summer of Soccer went out with a bang over the weekend, with Sunday's Euro 2024 and Copa America finals raking in fantastic numbers for the U.S. sports broadcaster.
Nielsen's live-plus-same-day data (as per Sportico) has the Euro 2024 final between Spain and England, which La Roja won 2-1, with an average viewership of 6.430 million. This is a 7% increase on the last European Championship final between Italy and England in 2021 on ESPN and ESPN2, which averaged 6.004 million.
However, those figures include pre- and post-match coverage. The game alone averaged 7.17 million on FOX and 3.0 million on Univision, making history as the largest English and Spanish-language European Championship telecasts ever — the Euro 2020 final proper averaged 6.488 million viewers on ESPN/ESPN2.
Fox's TV audience peaked at 8.465 million viewers during the 4:30 to 4:45 p.m. ET quarter-hour. Additionally, TelevisaUnivision's coverage of Spain vs. England enjoyed a 13% increase from the Euro 2020 final's figures. As per SportsMediaWatch, the Bay Area was the top market for the Euro 2024 final.
Later that same day, the 2024 Copa America final, which Argentina won in extra time by beating Colombia 1-0, took place, averaging 6.109 million viewers on Fox. With that, it became the most-watched Copa America finale on English-language TV in U.S. history.
The match proper averaged 6.84 and 6.35 million viewers on Fox Sports and TelevisaUnivision, respectively. Additionally, the game peaked at 7.074 million viewers on FOX.
This marks a tremendous increase over the competition's previous two finals — the 2021 edition (1.94M) between Argentina and Brazil, and the 2016 curtain-closer (2.53M) between Argentina and Chile, both of which were aired on FS1. Unsurprisingly, Miami, where Lionel Messi's current MLS club are based, was the tournament's top market.
Univision and TUDN delivered a combined 5.206 million average viewers with their complete telecasts, though the match window's average audience was 6.35 million, peaking at 6.66 million in the 11:15 p.m. ET quarter-hour. With that, it became the network's most-watched program since the 2014 FIFA World Cup final, which also featured Lionel Messi's La Albiceleste.
The 2024 Copa America tournament in whole, which was staged in the USA and featured the USMNT, averaged 1.418 million viewers across FOX, FS1, and FS2. This is a huge increase over the previous edition in 2021, which averaged 309,000 viewers per match.
However, the U.S. men's national team were not invited three years ago. Nonetheless, the 2024 figures were up 44% in comparison to the 2016 Copa América Centenario (987,000 viewers per game), with the Stars and Stripes taking part that year and reaching the semifinal stage.
The Euro 2024 tournament, on the other hand, averaged 1.675 million viewers per match on FOX and FS1, up 34% from the previous European Championship (1.25M). As a result, it became the most-watched European Championship in U.S. history on England-language TV.
Despite these amazing numbers for Fox, Univision ultimately won the viewership battle in the summer of 2024, with their Copa America coverage averaging more viewers per game (1.86 million: a 61% increase from 2021) than Fox Sports' coverage of the CONMEBOL and UEFA tournaments.
