As the 2026 FIFA World Cup went about its business of smashing every TV ratings record on the books, the tournament’s stateside media partners made a killing with their respective ad sales efforts.

According to Guideline data, the supersized soccer spectacle generated a staggering $1.19 billion in total ad sales revenue across the Fox Sports and Telemundo/Peacock platforms, nearly trebling (2.7x) the dollar volume in Qatar four years ago ($441.9 million). The 170% increase was largely driven by higher rates (which were facilitated by the tourney’s viewer-friendly North American staging ground), the expansion of the field from a 32- to a 48-team format and the introduction of hydration breaks.

The gold standard of ad sales measurement, Guideline captures actual agency investment data from across the six major U.S. holding companies, as well as transactions made across most of the large independent shops.

Traditional TV led the way for FIFA’s stateside media partners, as Fox’s broadcast flagship and Telemundo commanded $1.03 billion in overall spend, good for 86% of their total combined haul. That works out to a 142% improvement compared to the previous World Cup, during which the two networks scared up $424.2 million in sales.

Per Guideline estimates, Fox earned a 70% share of the World Cup sales bonanza, which translates to a 36-day takeaway of $835.24 million. Minus production expenses, that should leave Fox with a tidy profit, in light of the fact that the network paid approximately $485 million for the rights to broadcast this year’s event.

Fox elected to capitalize on the opportunity afforded by FIFA’s new hydration breaks, during which it sold 30-second units that topped the $1 million mark during Sunday’s Spain-Argentina final. Telemundo, for its part, went the traditional route and did not break away for sponsor messages during the mid-half stoppages.

While streaming claimed a much smaller piece of the commercial pie than traditional TV, the hike in spending on the digital platforms was commensurate with a significant uptick in the non-linear deliveries. With a shared streaming haul of $166.2 million, sales across the medium were up 839% versus the relatively modest $17.7 million figure posted in Qatar.

According to Adobe Analytics data (Nielsen does not measure the Peacock audience), streaming accounted for 48% of the overall Spanish-language World Cup deliveries, up from a 30% share in 2022. With an average-minute audience of 3 million streamers across the 104 match windows, Telemundo’s digital viewership grew +297% compared to 767,000 per match during the Qatar tourney.

All told, Telemundo/Peacock averaged 6.3 million viewers across all match windows, up 143% versus the previous World Cup (2.6 million). Fox averaged 7.74 million viewers per match, a tally that includes pre-match coverage, effectively doubling (+116%) the 3.59 million average notched in Qatar.