The FIFA World Cup continues to deliver major audiences for RTÉ, with streaming as the defining growth story of the tournament.
As the competition moves through its knockout stages, RTÉ Player has not only sustained the momentum built during the group phase but has pushed individual match streaming numbers beyond the total recorded during the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Friday night’s dramatic meeting of Argentina and Cabo Verde has become the most-streamed match of the tournament to date, generating 638,000 streams on RTÉ Player.
The game, which kicked off at 11 pm Irish time and ran deep into the night as Cabo Verde pushed the defending champions all the way, also delivered strongly on linear television. An average audience of 369,000 watched on RTÉ2, representing a 67 per cent share of the available television audience.
That streaming figure is especially striking when set against the 2022 tournament. RTÉ reported 478,000 total RTÉ Player live streams for the Argentina v France final in Qatar, meaning the Argentina v Cabo Verde match in 2026 has already come in at around one-third higher than the most-streamed single-game figure from four years ago.
Monday night’s Iberian meeting of Spain and Portugal also underlined the scale of digital engagement around the tournament. The match generated 616,000 streams on RTÉ Player, while an average audience of 527,000 watched on RTÉ2 as Spain came through a tense encounter. The television audience share was 40 per cent.
Sunday night’s England v Mexico clash was another notable marker of changing habits. Despite a 2 am Irish time kick-off, the match generated 260,500 streams on RTÉ Player. An average audience of 89,000 watched live on RTÉ2, securing a 43 per cent share of the available television audience at that time of night.
Taken together, those three knockout fixtures alone have generated more than 1.5 million streams on RTÉ Player.
They built on what was already a record-breaking start to the tournament. RTÉ said that matches streamed on RTÉ Player between June 11 and June 28 had accumulated 9.2 million streams, already surpassing the total streaming figure recorded across the entire 2022 FIFA World Cup.
RTÉ’s own Annual Report for 2022 recorded 8.5 million total streams for the Qatar World Cup, across live coverage, highlights, on-demand and preview programming. It also noted that the figure was 47 per cent higher than the equivalent total for the 2018 World Cup, implying around 5.8 million streams for that tournament.
In that context, the 2026 tournament represents a sharp acceleration in audience behaviour. The World Cup remains a major linear television event, particularly when high-profile teams and favourable kick-off times align, but the centre of gravity is clearly shifting towards flexible viewing.
RTÉ2’s group stage coverage reached 2.9 million unique individuals on a one-minute reach basis, while RTÉ Sport’s online and social channels also delivered 23 million video views during the early part of the tournament. But the RTÉ Player numbers are the standout.
They show that the expanded 48-team format, the spread of kick-off times across North America, and the depth of match availability have combined to make streaming a primary part of the World Cup experience rather than an add-on.
For RTÉ, that strengthens the commercial and public-service case for major free-to-air sports rights being supported across multiple platforms. The biggest moments are still capable of drawing hundreds of thousands to RTÉ2, but the growth is being powered by fans watching on phones, tablets, laptops and connected TVs, often at times when traditional viewing would previously have been limited.
With the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final still to come, the 2026 World Cup is already on course to become RTÉ Player’s strongest football tournament, or indeed sporting event, in history.
Good news for RTÉ, Heineken 0.0 as the main broadcast sponsor and all the other advertisers with whom we have grown familiar watching live TV on a regular basis again over the last four weeks. How many of them can you name?
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Image Credit: Sport for Business / RTÉ
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