Seattle's previous World Cup viewership was surprisingly average

FIFA fever has hit Seattle, one of 11 U.S. cities hosting the 2026 World Cup. But even before we became a host city, soccer was a popular sport here, anchored by strong local support for the Sounders and Reign.

So you might assume locals have always been glued to their televisions whenever the World Cup rolls around. However, market research from the last tournament in 2022 shows local viewership was surprisingly middle-of-the-pack compared with the other 10 current U.S. host cities.

The data comes from market research giant Nielsen, which surveyed about 98,000 adults nationwide in 2023 about whether they had watched any of the 2022 World Cup matches on TV. The competition was hosted that year in Qatar, with Argentina defeating France in the final.

Among the 11 U.S. host cities, Seattle ranked seventh.

According to the data, a projected 383,000 of the 3.2 million adults in the Seattle metro area, which includes King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, watched the last World Cup. That's about 12%.

Viewership in Seattle was far behind the No. 1 metro area, Miami, where 20% of adults tuned in. San Francisco and Los Angeles followed, both at 14%. Boston, New York and Philadelphia also had slightly higher viewership than Seattle.

We did outpace four of the current host cities: Kansas City, Atlanta and Houston, all of which hovered around 11%, while Dallas landed at the bottom with 9%.

Several metro areas not hosting this year's World Cup games also had significantly higher viewership than Seattle. In Washington, D.C., about 17% of adults tuned in to the 2022 tournament. El Paso, Texas, came in at 16%, and a few other metros - including San Diego, Denver, and Hartford, Conn. - hit 15%.

That said, Seattle's viewership was slightly higher than the 11% average across all 112 metro areas included in the data.

It's surprising to me that Seattle's numbers weren't a bit higher. The data doesn't offer any explanations; perhaps we simply prefer local teams to national ones.

The Nielsen survey also provided demographic breakdowns of Seattle-area viewers.

The local World Cup audience skewed heavily male. Men made up 74% of viewers, compared with just 26% for women.

Viewers also tended to be well-educated: 60% held a four-year college degree, significantly higher than the 41% rate among Seattle-area adults overall.

In other respects, the viewing audience looked very much like the rest of the region. The average age of a local World Cup viewer was 46, about a year younger than the region's overall average for adults. The racial makeup of the audience also closely mirrored the broader area, with white, non-Hispanic residents making up 69% of viewers and 70% of the total adult population at that time.

As you might expect, most Seattle-area residents who watched the World Cup also were fans of local soccer clubs: 69% said they followed the Sounders, compared with just 24% of all adults in the area, and 29% followed the Reign, compared with 6% of all adults.

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