President Donald Trump on Monday expressed astonishment on the TV rankings for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and confirmed that he personally intervened to assist overturn a suspension for one in every of U.S. soccer’s star players, allowing him to return to the pitch for tonight’s must-win match against Belgium.
The sport is expressed to be a rankings bonanza for Fox Sports, and the controversial red card against U.S. striker Folarin Balogun last week threatened to overshadow things. That’s 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 essentially the most successful World Cup in history,” Trump said at an Oval Office event Monday morning to advertise 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 one another,” thus sparking the choice to call Infantino and request a review.
And Trump used the moment to crow concerning the rankings for the World Cup, that are delivering enormous viewership each to Fox, which holds English-language rights, and Telemundo, which holds Spanish-language rights.
“This isn’t just a hit, I actually said, Gianni, we’ve got all these games, each is popping out to be a Super Bowl,” Trump said. “It’s not our essential sport, to place it mildly, and this has been 4 times more successful, he told me last night the numbers are 4 times greater. They think 50 or 60 million individuals are going to be watching the sport tonight.”
Indeed, the rankings 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, in keeping with preliminary Nielsen numbers, making it the largest English-language TV audience ever for any soccer match in america. Telemundo and Peacock drew a further 9.1 million viewers for the Spanish-language telecast of the match.
Telemundo’s World Cup viewership, meanwhile, greater than doubled from 2022.