Over 80 million Indian viewers tuned into Zee5 to watch underdog Spain take on Argentina in a tense FIFA World Cup final that went on until almost 4 am Monday morning. As per Taboola, India is now the second-most engaged market globally for FIFA World Cup content on the open web, generating around 10 million pageviews in June 2026 alone, ahead of established football markets like Brazil, France, and Spain.
One might argue that live broadcast and cumulative match viewership metrics in India for the 2026 World Cup were lower than the 2022 Qatar edition, but this decrease can be ascribed to delayed and fragmented media rights negotiations leading up to the tournament and late-night match kickoff timings in the North American time zones.
Ankit Suri, DGM, legal & strategy, ITW ARC (ITW Universe), says the viewership numbers highlight that success for any property lies in one currency only – attention. “Clearly there is demand, as evidenced by those dedicated viewers tuning in regularly past midnight, but it is important to note why that demand was there. It is not just the quality of matches, but also clear storylines that the more casual fans were hooked on to,” he says.
A large part of viewer interest was driven by social media hype, which is why OTT and CTV viewership was well ahead of linear TV with 295 million users. Overall, the football World Cup reached a cumulative audience base of 388 million across TV and digital, says Zee.
The numbers tell a striking story since industry estimates place the football fan base in India at around 300 million. Brands also began to hop onto the advertising bandwagon mid-way through the tournament with Zee reporting there were over 25 participating advertisers quarter final onwards.
Taboola communications lead Dave Struzzi notes that football in India is ready for serious, long-term media and advertising investment. Taboola’s data shows a football audience that is larger, more engaged, and more commercially relevant than the industry has given it credit for, and the advertiser response is beginning to reflect that. The outlook for properties like the Indian Super League (ISL) and the European leagues follows directly from this, Struzzi says.
Raising the bar
The onus is now on broadcasters and advertisers to keep the football fandom alive through India’s own ISL and the various European leagues that have a dedicated following in the country. While the ISL broadcast rights for the 2026-27 season are currently open for bidding, JioStar holds the rights for the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga will be streamed on FanCode and Zee will broadcast Germany’s Bundesliga.
It will be interesting to see how advertisers leverage these leagues to keep up the momentum generated by the World Cup. To be sure, football comes nowhere close to the scale of viewership that cricket commands. The Indian Premier League (IPL) this year reached a record 1.2 billion viewers across TV and digital.
However, Shradha Agarwal, co-founder & global CEO, Grapes Worldwide, points out that football does not have to compete with cricket to be valuable for brands.
“Cricket offers unmatched scale, but football attracts a different kind of audience, one that actively follows clubs, players and leagues throughout the year. The bigger challenge is that interest in football rises sharply during global tournaments and then drops off. That is why brands should see football as a long-term opportunity rather than something to use only during the World Cup,” she suggests, adding that for brands targeting younger viewers with global interests, this platform is difficult to ignore.
The engagement levels among football fans are often much higher than cricket. India holds 10.2% of FIFA’s Instagram followers, trailing behind Brazil at 16%. Over 35,000 content creators shared tournament-related posts on the platform, and roughly 35 million users engaged with World Cup content this year, according to creator intelligence platform Qoruz. “Indian football fans today carry a soft power, and a testament to that is the upcoming friendly game that Brazil will play here against India in October,” says Prashant Joglekar, founder, SportsBiznet.
The broadcasters and advertisers will have to innovate to create new engagement touch points during the European leagues and ISL to keep Indian football fans engaged all year round. They will also need to reach audiences in smaller cities and villages to build the football ecosystem and nurture local talent, Joglekar says, commending Zee for pledging 15% of its football-related subscription revenue into grassroots football development across India.
Broadcasters would do well to not overlook the casual fans that tuned into the World Cup, adds Suri. Since Zee currently has an advantage after the tournament’s success, it could consider increasing the library of its football content to offer premium documentaries of previous World Cups or movies with football themes to turn the casual fan into a dedicated one.
