The group stage of the FIFA World Cup 2026 has established a new attendance record, with over 5 million people witnessing the first 72 matches of the major international football event.
The first-ever 48-team event, held in 16 host cities, drew a total of 4.6 million fans to group stage matches, with an average attendance of 64,508 per match. This beat the all-time attendance record of 3.5 million established during the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
On June 25, FIFA had its highest-ever single-day tournament attendance of 426,834. According to FIFA, spectators from 210 nations and territories attended the group stage, and the World Cup has had over 80,000 people attend a single match eight times.
The tournament’s first match between co-hosts Mexico and South Africa drew 80,824 people to the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. In terms of viewership, the competition has already achieved enormous broadcast statistics, with over 50 million people tuning in from Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
Mexico’s 2-0 victory over South Africa on US network Fox drew 7.2 million people, making it the most-watched FIFA men’s World Cup opener ever televised in English in the United States.
Meanwhile, 10 million people watched Brazil versus Morocco on Fox, establishing a new record. It was the highest-rated non-US national team World Cup group stage broadcast in the history of English-language US television (a record surpassed again throughout the tournament).
Canada’s momentous first World Cup triumph drew an average of 5.3 million viewers, making it the country’s most-watched group-stage match and the highest-rated national team broadcast.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s opening match against Morocco was the highest-rated television broadcast of 2026, with an average of 28.9 million viewers tuning in to see the 1-1 tie. Globo, a media powerhouse, reached 49.9 million unique individuals across its channels for the same match.
After 41 games, the World Cup has attracted 205 million unique viewers on CCTV stations in China. Tunisia against Japan was the live match with the most unique viewers so far, with 24 million viewers tuning in on CCTV5.
