FIFA president: KC’s 2026 World Cup games will get Super Bowl type TV viewership
The Chiefs’ loss in Super Bowl LIX set a record with 127.7 million U.S. viewers across television and streaming platforms.
But as FIFA president Gianni Infantino noted this week, those numbers won’t come close to the viewership expected for the 2026 World Cup final. More than a billion people watched Argentina’s win over France.
But Infantino thinks those Super Bowl TV numbers will be seen on each day of the tournament leading up to the final.
“I mean, look at the Super Bowl, which is fantastic, right? It has what, 120, 130 million viewers, right?” Infantino said on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd.” “The World Cup has 6 billion viewers. So a World Cup is 104 Super Bowls in one month. It’s three Super Bowls a day. And this happens from here, and this can happen every week if you have the best league in the world.”
With Kansas City set to play host to four group stage matches and a round-of-32 game and a quarterfinal, that would be six Super Bowl-type audiences, using Infantino’s math.
That’s unlike any worldwide attention that has ever been paid to Kansas City.
World Cup organizers in Kansas City also estimate 650,000 visitors will attend the six games at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium or visit the FanFest site.
Infantino made the viewership comment when talking about how the World Cup can help soccer become more popular in the United States. He believes kids will see soccer as a sport worth pursuing once they get older.
“It is growing everywhere,” Infantino said of soccer. “It’s growing in the Middle East. It’s growing in East Asia. But I think the big surprise will be the growth here in North America. When you see every child, girl or boy, now plays soccer, what happens (now) is that the most talented players, they go to other American sports because they maybe don’t see a path to glory. But they will see it now, this year with the Club World Cup, with the best teams in the world, next year, with the World Cup, with the best countries in the world, they will see that there is a path to glory, a path to something incredible. And this will make a big difference.
“When the U.S. organized the 94 World Cup, 85% of the Americans a couple of months before (the tournament started) didn’t know that the World Cup was happening. Today is the other way around. 85% of Americans, they know that the World Cup is coming already one year ahead. So these are signs that things are changing. Plus one more thing, if I may, you are the United States of America, right? The greatest country in the world. You are No. 1 in kind of everything you do. You cannot be satisfied to be No. 20 in the No. 1 sport. You want to be No. 1 in the No. 1 sport. So let’s go for it.”
The U.S. men’s team is currently 16th in FIFA’s rankings, but Infantino’s zeal for making America a world power is interesting. The U.S. men’s team hasn’t gotten past the round of 16 in a World Cup in nearly a century.
But a strong showing next year could boost the game’s popularity here, and Infantino seems eager to see it happen. It’s why Infantino was in Los Angeles this week with Argentine star Lionel Messi and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes for Adidas’ 2026 World Cup kickoff.
Infantino explained that soccer’s growth in the United States is a win around the globe.
“What is important is that what happens here in America has an impact all over the world,” Infantino said. “So the growth figures cannot just be measured in the United States, but all over the world. And when it comes to both women’s football and men’s football, whenever we do something here, it has such an important global impact that is just incredible for the game.”
This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 10:48 AM.
