American soccer fans have never had more options to watch the game on television. From networks to streaming services to web sites, if you want to see the game you can find it. Some for a fee, others for free.
With so much of it available to us, I’ve been thinking about the “American style” of broadcasting. It may very well be much like American culture, a little of this and a little of that.
The viewership of the 2026 World Cup informs us a bit. Sixty-five million people watched the final between Spain and Argentina, split roughly this way: 40 million in English on Fox and 25 million in Spanish on Telemundo and Peacock. A good number of the voices on Fox are from Great Britain, though the lead announcers John Strong and Stu Holden, are American.
Strong and Holden called the World Cup final for a third consecutive tournament. No other American announcing duo had ever done that. But might be difficult to argue they are more well known than Andrés Cantor, the famed on Spanish-language broadcaster.
We haven’t a clue how many, but we know anecdotally, that many English speakers enjoy watching in Spanish, mostly it seems because of the style: faster-paced, more calling the action, more emotion, grander goal calls.
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