European Championships: Spain & England Wins Drive Record Round Of 16 Viewing For Fox
England's Jude Bellingham celebrates his equalizer against Slovakia Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images
England’s last-minute heroics in their European Championship game against Slovakia provided big numbers for Fox, but it was Spain’s victory over Georgia that drove record viewing figures for the tournament.
The European soccer tournament’s Round of 16 on Sunday saw England beat Slovakia 2-1 after extra time with Spain comfortably beating Georgia 4-1, albeit having conceded the opening goal in the game.
Some 2,868,000 viewers tuned in to watch the Spanish team, consisting of young superstars including Nico Williams and 16-year old Lamine Yamal. This made it the most-watched European Round of 16 game in U.S. English-language history and was up 19% from the equivalent game in the previous tournament – 2021’s Belgium versus Portugal, which was watched by 2.4M (Euro 2020 was delayed due to Covid).
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The match peaked with 3.3M viewers between 4:15pm and 4:30pm at the start of the second half. Its biggest markets included Miami, San Diego and Kansas City.
Spain take on Germany in the quarter finals next on Friday July 5 at 12pm ET.
Meanwhile, earlier in the day, England’s Jude Bellingham saved one of the early tournament favorites from going out of the tournament with a 95th minute overhead bicycle kick equalizer, leading to extra time. Captain Harry Kane scored minutes later at the start of extra time to help England to a 2-1 win over Slovakia.
This match was watched by 2.54M, making it the second most watched Round of 16 game from the European Championships, up from the 1.5M that tuned in for the equivalent figure last time out between Holland and Czech Republic.
The England match peaked with 3.3M viewers between 2:15pm and 2:30pm at the start of extra time.
Kansas City, which has been branding itself as the “Soccer Capital of America” was the biggest market for the game, followed by San Diego and Washington, D.C.
England play Switzerland, who beat Italy in the last round, in the quarter finales on Saturday July 6 at 12pm ET.
One small caveat to these record viewing numbers for the Round of 16 is that a Round of 16 was first introduced at Euro 2016 as the tournament increased the number of teams playing, meaning it’s only the third time that the tournament didn’t go straight from the group stages to the quarter finals.