Topline

The first month of World Cup competition drove a record-breaking 2.8 million people to sign up for Fox One, the streaming service with exclusive rights to broadcast the tournament in English, according to new data from streaming market research firm Antenna.

Lionel Messi of Argentina during the World Cup.

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Key Facts

FOX One added 2.8 million new sign-ups in June alone, Antenna reports, which doesn’t account for anyone who signed up to watch in the tournament’s last three weeks.

The opening day of the tournament, June 11, drove 400,000 sign-ups on its own and 93% of June’s gross additions were brand-new subscribers to the service.

The June surge is more than 2.5 times the previous monthly best for Fox One, which added 1.1 million subscribers in January when it broadcast some Wild Card matchups of the NFL playoffs and the NFC Championship game.

How people signed up for FOX One also changed significantly in June: sign ups directly through Fox accounted for 40% of new users and Amazon Channels, which had accounted for a majority of new sign-ups from launch last August through May, dropped to just 19%.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

How many people unsubscribe. Now that the World Cup is over, Antenna notes it’s possible the service could see a major drop in its numbers. It’s likely Fox One will see some of its new cohort stay on for Fox-licensed NFL games this season, but Fox won't broadcast its first football game of the year until the Patriots vs. Lions matchup in Germany on Nov. 15. Fox will also broadcast the Eagles vs. Cowboys game on Thanksgiving Day, select Wild Card games, a divisional game and the NFC Championship game.

key background

English broadcasting rights for the men’s World Cup were exclusively held by Fox, which paid $485 million for the privilege. Linear TV viewers could watch the games on the main Fox broadcast network (a free, over-the-air channel), its dedicated sports cable channel FS1 or via the Fox One service. The World Cup’s opening match between Mexico and South Africa drew over 1.2 billion viewers worldwide, including 6.3 million on Fox channels to make it the most-watched U.S. telecast of a World Cup opening match in history. An estimated 2 million people watched the final game between Spain and Argentina, though final numbers have not yet been reported.

SURPRISING FACT

There were 9,722 people who watched all 48 initial World Cup matches on Fox and FS1, according to Nielsen data. There are 104 total games in a tournament, and Nielsen hasn’t yet said how many people managed to tune in for all of them.

TANGENT

This year’s World Cup stirred up controversy as the first tournament to include “hydration breaks.” Following the sweltering 2025 FIFA Club World Cup in the U.S. last year, where temperatures topped 100 degrees, FIFA introduced mandatory three-minute hydration breaks midway through the two halves of each game. The breaks were criticized for interrupting the flow of the game for both players and viewers, who had their televisions switched over to ads during the stoppage. The ads were allowed to begin 20 seconds after the referee blew the whistle for the break and had to end 30 seconds before play started again, which meant there was room for eight extra 30-second ad slots per match. BBC Sport reported that an average 30-second World Cup ad slot on Fox Sports cost between $200,000 and $300,000 each—rising to $750,000 during USA matches and the final stages.

BIG NUMBER

$250 million. That’s how much ad revenue was likely generated during hydration breaks in the U.S. alone.