For Fox, televising the World Cup is ‘like having two NFL seasons in a single year’

For Fox, the $485 million paid for the English-language World Cup broadcast rights in America may be the best investment the network has ever made.

Ratings are up significantly, fueled by Nielsen’s recent enhancement of audience numbers via more accurate out-of-home viewing metrics. In the end, as explained by Stephen Battaglio of the Los Angeles Times, Fox projects that 150 million will watch some portion of the World Cup coverage. That’s close to the 170 million who watch Fox’s NFL regular-season games.

“For us, it’s like having two NFL seasons in a single year,” Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill told Battaglio.

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