FOX Sports Scores Strong FIFA World Cup™ Semifinal Numbers as Croatia’s Cinderella Story Continues

Soccer 07/12/2018

Croatia-England is Most-Streamed Semifinal Match in FIFA World Cup™ History

Wednesday’s Extra-Time Thriller Delivers 6,265,000 Viewers across FOX and Streaming Sources, Peaks on Television at 7,495,000

NEW YORK & MOSCOW – Wednesday’s FIFA World Cup™ Semifinal that saw first-time finalist Croatia defeat favored England 2-1 in extra time, scored 5,504,000 viewers on the FOX broadcast network and set an all-time FIFA World Cup™ Semifinal streaming record.

Peaking at nearly 7.5 million viewers (7,495,000), the match was up +61% from the Spain-Germany match in the corresponding 2010 window (3,425,000), and up +75% from the Portugal-France match in the corresponding 2006 window (3,137,000). Against 2014’s match, televised in a more favorable time zone, the match was virtually flat, down less than just one half of 1% from Netherlands-Argentina (5,513,000).

The victory by Croatia, sending them into Sunday’s Final with France (11:00 AM ET, FOX), delivered the most Households of any FIFA World Cup™ Semifinal match since at least 1990 (4,159,000).

According to Nielsen Media Research, the 2018 FIFA World Cup™ on FOX/FS1 has now produced the following U.S. television marks:

The highest Household Delivery for any semifinal since at least 1990
The most-watched Quarterfinal on record – Croatia-Russia – 6,386,000 viewers on FOX, Saturday, July 7
The most-watched Quarterfinals day on record – Saturday, July 7
The most-watched weekday non-U.S. Round of 16 match on record – Croatia vs. Denmark – 5,966,000 on FOX, Sunday, July 1
The most-watched non-U.S. Group Stage match on record on English language television – Germany vs. Sweden – 5,454,000 on FOX, Saturday, June 23

The complete 2018 FIFA World Cup™ Semifinals on FOX averaged 5,033,000 viewers over both matches, down just -6% from the 2014 Semifinals (5,334,000), and up +49% from the 2010 Semifinals (3,380,000).

Delivering 6,265,000 viewers across FOX and streaming sources, Croatia’s 2-1 win is the most-streamed FIFA World Cup™ Semifinal in history, garnering an average-minute audience of 830,000 for the live match. Recording 146 million streaming minutes, the Croatia-England Semifinal outperformed 2014’s match between Netherlands-Argentina (140 million minutes) by +4%.

The streaming audience also set a FOX Sports record for best authenticated event ever, and led FOX Sports to its best single day of the tournament, with 2,000,000 unique streamers consuming the match, up +8% over the previous high (1.9 million) set on Matchday 18 of this year’s tournament.

FOX Sports delivered its best day of the tournament on social platforms, with 23 million video views (+13% vs. previous high on Matchday 21), as Twitter achieved another record day, with 16 million views across @FOXSports and @FOXSoccer handles.