President Donald Trump on Monday expressed astonishment at the TV ratings for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and confirmed that he personally intervened to help overturn a suspension for one of U.S. soccer’s star players, allowing him to return to the pitch for tonight’s must-win match against Belgium.
The game is expressed to be a ratings bonanza for Fox Sports, and the controversial red card against U.S. striker Folarin Balogun last week threatened to overshadow things. That is until Trump stepped in and called FIFA chief Gianni Infantino, leading FIFA to suspend the red card decision, thus allowing Balogun to compete tonight.
“I did, I spoke to Gianni, who’s highly respected, who’s produced the most successful World Cup in history,” Trump said at an Oval Office event Monday morning to promote the Trump Accounts initiative. “So yes, I asked for a review by FIFA.”
He added that he watched the play and thought “that wasn’t even an infraction, that was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other,” thus sparking the decision to call Infantino and request a review.
And Trump used the moment to crow about the ratings for the World Cup, which are delivering enormous viewership both to Fox, which holds English-language rights, and Telemundo, which holds Spanish-language rights.
“This isn’t just a success, I actually said, Gianni, we’ve got all these games, each one is turning out to be a Super Bowl,” Trump said. “It’s not our main sport, to put it mildly, and this has been four times more successful, he told me last night the numbers are four times greater. They think 50 or 60 million people are going to be watching the game tonight.”
Indeed, the ratings are, as Trump might say, “yuge.” Last week’s U.S. match against Bosnia and Herzegovina (the one with the infamous red card) averaged 24.43 million viewers for Fox, according to preliminary Nielsen numbers, making it the biggest English-language TV audience ever for any soccer match in the United States. Telemundo and Peacock drew an additional 9.1 million viewers for the Spanish-language telecast of the match.
Telemundo’s World Cup viewership, meanwhile, more than doubled from 2022.
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