Expanded World Cup sets new attendance and viewership records, says FIFA

ISLAMABAD: FIFA says the 2026 World Cup has set new benchmarks for stadium attendance and television audiences, with the expanded 48-team tournament driving record numbers across North America.

Speaking on Friday, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said the scale of the competition had clearly contributed to the surge, while adding that the tournament had still gone beyond expectations. He said the event was the biggest World Cup yet, with 16 more teams than before.

Before Saturday’s third-place playoff and Sunday’s final, FIFA had already officially counted more than 6.6 million spectators at venues in the United States, Canada and Mexico. After Spain defeated Argentina in the final on Monday, media tallies put total attendance for the 104-match tournament at 6.81 million, although FIFA had not yet issued a final official figure.

The previous World Cup ticket sales record was 3,587,538, set in the United States in 1994. In 2026, the five-million mark was passed during the round-of-32 meeting between France and Sweden. FIFA also said stadium occupancy reached a record 99.7% of capacity, despite controversy over expensive tickets, while average attendance stood at 65,351 per match.

FIFA said on Saturday that television figures had also broken past records in host countries and globally, though it has not yet released detailed data.

"TV viewership records were shattered, both in the host countries and across the globe"

At a Friday press conference, US President Donald Trump cited a figure of nearly six billion viewers. The 2022 World Cup final in Qatar, in which Argentina beat France, had been the tournament’s most-watched match with 1.5 billion viewers, ahead of the 1.12 billion who watched the 2018 final.

Revenue projections and prize money

Before the event, FIFA projected record revenue of more than seven billion euros, equivalent to $8 billion, for 2026. That would represent a 56% increase from 2022, when the World Cup was staged in Qatar.

Ahead of the 2026 edition, television rights income was projected to increase by 34% to almost $4 billion, while sponsorship revenue was expected to rise by 21%.

FIFA also said the tournament had performed strongly across digital platforms. It estimated that by the end of the round of 16, 5.2 billion people, or nearly two-thirds of the world’s population, had engaged with the competition at least once on social media or online.

Of the $3.7 billion FIFA planned to spend on the World Cup, one-quarter was earmarked for participating national teams and for clubs releasing players for international duty. In late April, the overall prize fund was raised by 15% to $871 million, compared with $440 million at the Qatar tournament.

The champions were due to receive $50 million, while every participating side was guaranteed at least $12.5 million. There was no assurance this would fully cover the higher expenses linked to the tournament’s broad geographic spread.

Talk of further expansion

Infantino also said at the start of the World Cup in June that FIFA had discussed expanding the 2030 tournament to 64 teams as part of its centenary edition. In remarks to Brazilian television, he said the matter had been submitted to the FIFA Council.

The 2030 World Cup is set to be staged across several countries, with Spain, Portugal and Morocco as hosts, along with Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina.