World Cup final viewers surpassed the one billion mark for Germany's 1-0 win against Argentina in 2014. That made the World Cup final the most-watched sporting event in history, and it should break its own viewership record this year.
Although the Olympics slightly outpaces the World Cup in terms of overall viewership, no single game or match can stack up against World Cup Final viewers.
World Cup Final Viewers
Since 2006, overall viewership has increased by double digits for successive World Cup finals. If that trend continues, more than 1.1 billion people will tune into the 2018 World Cup final.
In the U.S., the projected number of 2018 World Cup final viewers is nearly double the 17 million who watched in 2006.
If that projection holds, then the men's World Cup final will retake the No. 1 spot as the most-watched soccer match in U.S. history. Currently the 26.7 million viewers who tuned into the U.S. Women's National Team's 2015 World Cup final win is at the top of the list.
The total number of 2018 World Cup final viewers in the U.S. will be calculated based on the ratings from both the English-language broadcast on FOX and the Spanish-language broadcast on Telemundo.
Interestingly, this year's men's Wimbledon final will likely overlap with the World Cup final for the first time. The Wimbledon final is set to begin at 9:10 a.m. EST, followed by the World Cup final at 11:00 a.m. EST. Only two men's Wimbledon finals in the last twenty years have lasted less than one hour and 50 minutes.
In a bit of a role reversal, ESPN will be competing against the World Cup as the network broadcasting the Wimbledon final. ESPN and ABC, which are both majority owned by the Walt Disney Company, owned the U.S. English-language brodcasting rights to all World Cup games from 1994-2014.
The 2018 World Cup final will be on July 15 at Luzhniki Stadium.
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