Record number of Canadians watched FIFA World Cup on TV
Who said Canada isn’t a soccer nation?
Canadians across the country were highly anticipating this year’s FIFA World Cup, in large part due to the fact that Vancouver and Toronto served as two of the host cities. While the sport was already big north of the border, it’s resulted in even more Canadian fans.
As reported by Bell Media on Tuesday, a record-breaking 30.5 million unique Canadian viewers tuned into the live tournament coverage across Bell platforms including TSN and CTV. That makes up roughly 75 per cent of Canada’s entire population.
Every match throughout the FIFA World Cup averaged 1.6 million Canadian viewers, which is an increase of more than 50 per cent from 2022.
Of course, Canada’s impressive run in the tournament didn’t hurt when it came to viewer numbers. Their first-ever Round of 16 appearance versus Morocco, a game which they lost by a 3-0 final, had an average of 5.4 million Canadian viewers, making it the most-watched match of any non-Final ever.
TSN also reports that in total, more than 400 million hours of the FIFA World Cup were watched by Canadian viewers.
To no surprise, the most-watched match was the final between Spain and Argentina. The thrilling match, which went into extra time, had a record-breaking 6.4 million Canadian viewers.
This tournament saw Canada advance through the group stage for the first time, before then picking up their first-ever knockout win in the Round of 32 against South Africa. The extremely impressive showing saw them finish the tournament in 14th place, just one spot back of a powerhouse nation in Portugal.
The amount of viewership for this tournament will only further the improvements Canada Soccer has made in recent years. While it will still be some time before being viewed as a powerhouse themselves, they are gaining a ton of momentum in the right direction.
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