Mauricio Pochettino’s team were watched by a total viewership figure of 24.89m across the entire country as they began their tournament with a 4-1 victory over Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles (Los Angeles Stadium during the tournament).

That figure is also nearly one million more than the 24m people nationwide who tuned in to see the New York Knicks clinch their first NBA title since 1973 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

Additionally, the national TV audience for the United States v Paraguay was nearly 18m more than the Hurricanes v Knights Game 6 in the Stanley Cup final, and nearly 20m more than the opener.

By comparison, Canada’s World Cup opener had a TV audience of 4.3m people within Canada – nearly 5.8 times fewer than the United States game within the USA.

The USMNT commanded a total national TV audience share of 32%, which means that nearly one third of all TVs across the country were tuned into the game.

Canada, meanwhile, had an audience share of 42% for their opener, while the audience share in Mexico for Mexico v South Africa was 75% – 7% more than the US TV audience share for Super Bowl LX.

While the United States’ opening World Cup fixture broke the record for the most-watched USMNT game of all time, there is still work to be done to increase interest in soccer.

Super Bowl LX, by way of comparison, recorded 125.6m viewers across the United States – a 68% audience share – while there were 60.5m viewers of Mexico’s opening World Cup fixture within Mexico.