By: Jeremy Sun

Did you know the 2018 World Cup was watched by a total of 3.572 billion people? That was more than half of the people on Earth during that time! The soccer World Cup occurred in Russia from June 14 to July 15 in 2018.

According to FIFA, the 2018 World Cup final was watched by an estimated 1.12 billion people globally. The cumulative audience for the entire tournament was around 3.57 billion viewers, comprising 884.37 million viewers tuning in to linear TV coverage and a further 231.82 million out-of-home and digital-only viewers. Over the 64 matches, the average live audience was 191 million.

In the World Cup finals where France and Croatia went head to head, the France national football team ultimately defeated Croatia, winning the 2018 World Cup. France received the FIFA World Cup Trophy and according to NBC Chicago, they also earned $38 million.

The World Cup is one of the biggest and most-watched sporting events in the world in terms of cumulative audience. The global popularity of soccer and high quality competition was the cause of the billions of views the FIFA 2018 World Cup received.