World Cup KO times in 2026

Folk who watch usa sports anyway

West Coast golf is a pain for its timings

I guess American football and
basketball etc have uk fans who
watch live too

But I imagine there would be a much reduced audience

Interesting to know how many watch palmeiras v Chelsea,

can't see European broadcasters paying top dollar for rights if games are kicking off between 10pm - 3am !

England games get over 20 million, at 3am they'd be lucky to get 1 mil

There are two considerations, the heat and the money.

For the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, FIFA generated significant revenue from television broadcasting rights, totaling USD 3,426 million, which accounted for 45% of its full-cycle revenue from 2019 to 2022.

The largest share of this TV money came from Europe, contributing USD 1,061 million, followed by Asia and North Africa with USD 1,025 million.

Specific broadcasters included FOX in the United States, which paid over $400 million for TV rights through the 2022 World Cup, outbidding ESPN. Additionally, companies like Meta, X Corp., and Snap offered millions to FOX for highlight rights.

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 was the most-watched edition in the tournament’s history, with over five billion viewers, boosting the value of these broadcasting deals.

I can't remember it being so bad back in 1994.

latest kick off for an NFL game is 1:20AM over here.

USA 94 kick offs weren't any later from what I recall, nor Mexico '86

looking it up the latest kick offs in '94 were 11:30PM our time

Yeah nfl game is about 3 hours with
all of the breaks so 4am ish finish

12:30am was the lastest KO UK time in 94, (6:30CDT), (7:30 EDT)

but many of these World Club games have kicked off 2am in the morning here 30 years later and because of heat related concerns, more likely to kick off World Cup games at that time too especially as there's more games with an expanded world cup, wouldn't fancy catching a heatwave in Mexico City, LA, Houston or Guadalajara in July around midday lol

didn't the heat really affect Italy in 94 final ?

Brazil/Italy final was dreadful - played at 12.30pm local time in 38c heat..

quite a variety of temps likely and some are going to be indoor I guess with optional roof at some venues.

Can't find any confirmation but of kick off times yet but 4 games a day in the group stage so guessing we will see a late late slot (UK time)

I'd imagine where possible they'll allocate time slots to biggest audience in the group phase.

that wd make sense brentford

They do have air conditioned stadiums in the US

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/06/colombian-podcast-bobby-moore-england-arrest-bracelet-bogota-football

Interesting read about Bobby Moore and the emerald bracelet

Plenty of people would stay up if England were on at 3am, albeit I'm not sure how many England games will be at that time. I suspect the bulk of games will be somewhere between 5-1am.

It's not like it's the first World Cup to be like this, Japan/South Korea has a pretty horrific time zone for Europeans for example, but they work it out.

but what does plenty of people mean ?

normally over 20 mil would watch an England game at a knockout tournament

3 O'clock in the morning and I'm guessing it's less than 1 million especially if on a school night.

Higher than 1m, probably 4-5m if England actually played at 3am, but 3am is like the absolute worst possible time. My assumption like other is games won't air that late, I suspect around 1am will be the latest KO time. I mean an 8pm local time KO on the east coast is 1am here for example, they just won't have 8pm local times on the west coast I suspect, and if they do they won't involve major European teams.

5 mil on a Monday night with people having to either get up for work or go to school......at 3am!
because it's an expanded world  cup with a lot more games, they going to have to find new slots, especially with heat and humdity concerns off of the back of the club world cup

The fact that very few non US are going to go as a spectators (why would anyone risk arrest/deportation on entry due to posting a pic of an orange or whatever) means this could be the lowest viewed wc for a while. Imagine if FIFA lost money on this? Trump decimating the US tourist industry on his own

https://wttc.org/news/us-economy-set-to-lose-12-5bn-in-international-traveler-spend-this-year

means that by then there may be no hotels to house the fans anyway!

https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/match-schedule-fixtures-results-teams-stadiums

..

No times yet of course, likely fitted around
groups when known, and then teams
can avoid venues etc by winning
or losing groups as paths become known.

I feel it highly unlikely they will have games that will draw big TV audiences playing at unreasonable times for the home audience. They'll find a way to fudge it around so it'll be the likes of Ecuador v Uzbekistan playing at 3am our time.

Haven't they literally always done that, or at least in the last 20+ years that's how it's worked.

FIFA won't care about heat concerns, they only care about what makes the most money.

Jul 7, 2025 -- 10:05AM, scandanavian_haven wrote:

5 mil on a Monday night with people having to either get up for work or go to school......at 3am!because it's an expanded world

^I mean you could use the "work" principle for anytime an England game has aired during working hours and yet they still draw many millions of viewers, and working hours today are more flexible than they've ever been in the past. In terms of school night, 3am is surely better for school children than midday, yet I've still seen many school children watching games during the school day. People will find a way, such is the stature of football in this country.