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- NBCUniversal’s Telemundo owned the Spanish-language rights to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which proved to be a boost for Peacock, its streaming home.
- This is the second time since 2022 Peacock has shown the World Cup and has garnered subscriber growth from the tournament, with viewers also exploring other content on the platform.
- NBC executives said viewership, as well as advertising revenue, for programming in Spanish outside of sports has grown on Peacock and become an important part of the streaming service’s strategy.
Spanish players celebrate their 1-0 victory in the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final match against Argentina at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on July 19, 2026.Hannah Peters – Fifa | Fifa | Getty Images
The FIFA World Cup raked in massive viewership numbers for its media rights owners Fox Corp. and NBCUniversal’s Telemundo.
But NBCUniversal executives say the big audience numbers for the World Cup didn’t just reinforce the importance of live sports in an environment where media companies are competing harder than ever to draw viewers, they also highlighted that Spanish-language programming has become an important part of its strategy for streaming service Peacock.
The World Cup final broke records for both English and Spanish telecasts, according to Nielsen. Nearly 39 million viewers watched on Fox’s broadcast and streaming outlets, while about 24 million tuned in on Telemundo, Peacock and other NBC properties, marking the most watched Spanish broadcast of a soccer match in the U.S. Telemundo and Peacock averaged 6.3 million viewers through the 104 matches.
Like other live sports, the event also raked in hefty advertising dollars. The tournament more than doubled revenue from 2022, the last time Telemundo and Peacock aired it, according to NBCUniversal chairman of global advertising and partnerships Mark Marshall.
It has also led to growth for Peacock’s subscriber base and engagement, Marshall and Cesar Conde, who is the chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, including Telemundo, said in interviews.
“It not only brought so many new audiences and subscribers to Peacock, but it also introduced them to so much additional programming that they weren’t familiar with,” Conde said, adding that through Peacock viewers had different ways of consuming the content, from multiview to trivia offerings. “I think it made a big difference.”
Peacock, which launched in 2020, had 46 million subscribers as of April 30 and is expected to hit profitability in the second quarter. Both of those metrics put the streaming service behind most of its competitors, including Netflix and Disney+.
Comcast, which announced on June 29 that it plans to spin off NBCUniversal, will report earnings results on Thursday.
Live sports in general have lifted Peacock — especially after NBCUniversal started airing the NBA in 2025. The growing presence of the Olympics on the platform has also been key, with all of the events now shown on Peacock, along with shoulder programming and other kinds of content.
Telemundo has also been bulking up on sports rights, in addition to offering NBC’s sports in Spanish telecasts. This week Telemundo announced it had acquired the Spanish-language rights to the UEFA Champions League beginning with the 2027-28 season.
“In addition to just the big audiences, it also just showed us that consumers continue to change the way that they watch media,” said Conde, referring to the World Cup. “We kind of knew that consumers were very fluid between linear and streaming. I think this also showed they are very fluid across language, and are looking for that authentic connection.”
Peacock first aired the World Cup in Spanish in 2022, which provided a bigger-than-expected boost for the service. However, Peacock at the time was the main streaming outlet for the World Cup, regardless of language. This year Fox, the owner of the English-language rights, also offered the World Cup on its recently launched Fox One.
“I think it’s a combination of the great work between both the Telemundo and the Peacock teams. The combination of that work allowed us to grab a huge share of that audience in streaming, despite having increased competition on that platform,” Conde said.
FIFA is likely to sell the English and Spanish rights for the U.S. broadcast of the 2030 and 2034 World Cups combined in one package, rather than separately as it has in the past, CNBC recently reported.
“There seemed to be a lot of cannibalization in Spanish language for this World Cup,” said Lee Berke, a sports media consultant and CEO of LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media. “You may as well sell the rights together, particularly when it’s being offered on a stream basis. Then it’s just a question of which feed the viewer is going to.”
Each of the upcoming tournaments is expected to command between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, a big step up from the most recently negotiated deals, CNBC reported.
“This World Cup generated NFL style numbers, and if you could have aired those games, especially the Final, in prime time, it would have gotten closer to NFL championship numbers,” Berke said.
Broader appeal of Spanish content
However, this added viewership from Spanish-language content has extended beyond sports, Marshall and Conde said, and advertisers are taking notice.
It’s been a contributor to Peacock’s growth, in particular.
“Sometimes we need events like this to reset how we think about marketing and consumers. We still have conversations where you have Spanish language as like a niche extension to a media plan,” said Marshall regarding the World Cup. “The fact is this is a $4 trillion spending cohort that needs to be a centerpiece of your media plan, not an afterthought.”
Advertising has become a more important revenue driver and business initiative for media companies. Two key reasons: increased pressure to make streaming services profitable outside of just subscriber fees and the skyrocketing costs of sports rights.
In response, advertisers are increasingly buying spots on Spanish-language content, especially as the Hispanic population has significantly grown in the U.S. Hispanic consumers make up about 20% of the U.S. population and represent more than $4.1 trillion in purchasing power, according to a 2025 report from Nielsen.
“Hispanic consumers are a powerful demographic for brands willing to meet them with authenticity and insight,” said Stacie de Armas, Nielsen’s head of inclusive content and insights.
Even outside of Spanish speakers, NBCUniversal is experimenting with getting English-language audiences to tune into Telemundo content.
The success of non-English-language series like Netflix’s “Narcos” and “Squid Game,” as well as the Korean film “Parasite,” led NBCUniversal to test whether it could attract English-speaking audiences to Telemundo’s content, particularly on Peacock.
Prior to the Season 10 premiere of “El Señor de los Cielos” on July 7, Telemundo and Peacock ran ads — in English and with English subtitles — pushing viewers to catch up on the prior seasons on Peacock.
As a result of the ad, viewership of prior “El Señor de los Cielos” seasons got a jolt: English-subtitle viewing was up 42% and English-dominant viewership jumped to 25% from 9%, said Marshall. New-to-Telemundo viewers for prior season of the show also rose to 39% from 22%.
“Now we’re trying to see if there’s other opportunities,” to recreate this playbook for Telemundo and Peacock, Marshall said.
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