With the FIFA World Cup 2026 hurtling towards its dénouement next Sunday with the final between Spain and Argentina, the tournament to date has delivered better-than-anticipated viewership figures across TV and its RTÉ Player, which has surpassed 21m streams to date.
during the FIFA World Cup, as the tournament’s two semi-finals attracted a combined reach of almost 2 million viewers.
The matches between Spain and France and England and Argentina reached 1.98m unique viewers on a one-minute reach basis, according to figures released by RTÉ.
An average television audience of 873,000 watched Spain defeat France on RTÉ2 on Tuesday night, representing a 61% share of the available television audience. The match also generated 1.03m streams on the RTÉ Player.
England’s semi-final against Argentina attracted an average audience of 949,000 on RTÉ2 on Wednesday night, securing a 60% share of the available audience. A further 985,000 streams were recorded on the RTÉ Player.
The figures underline the strong audience growth recorded by RTÉ Player during the tournament. The streaming platform has generated 21.3 million streams during the 2026 World Cup to date, compared with 8.5 million streams across the entire 2022 tournament, according to the broadcaster.
RTÉ Player had already exceeded the total number of streams generated during the 2022 World Cup by the end of this year’s group stages.
“The level of engagement with both the FIFA World Cup and the GAA Championship again shows how important the relationship is between live sport and free-to-air television,” said Declan McBennett, head of sport at RTÉ.
“RTÉ Sport is proud to bring the very best of national and global sport to a mass Irish audience and to make it accessible wherever people choose to watch, listen or follow along.
“To surpass 21 million streams on RTÉ Player during the tournament is a remarkable milestone and demonstrates the appetite among Irish audiences for major sporting events. With a huge weekend of sport still to come, we look forward to bringing viewers comprehensive coverage of both the FIFA World Cup Final and the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship.”
RTÉ is preparing for a major weekend of live sport, with the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final and the FIFA World Cup Final both taking place on Sunday, July 19.
Coverage of the All-Ireland final between Galway and Limerick will begin at 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
Argentina will then face Spain in the World Cup Final, with coverage beginning at 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
Irish-language commentary on the World Cup Final will be available through the audio selection function on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, with Seán Ó Finneadha and Charlie McGeever providing coverage.
RTÉ’s coverage of the FIFA World Cup is sponsored by Heineken 0.0.
