The best way to watch the World Cup is in Spanish

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

(CNN) — Giovanni Canales only knows one way to watch the World Cup: In Spanish on Telemundo.

Canales, 24, was raised in Rhode Island by a father who formerly played for the Honduran national team. And in his household, the Spanish-language network’s spirited soccer commentary, with sportscaster Andrés Cantor’s signature cries of “goooooooool,” are essential to the viewing experience. Never mind that Canales doesn’t speak Spanish himself — the way that Telemundo announcers start talking faster as the action on the pitch intensifies is its own kind of language. Even if he steps away from the TV for a moment, he can rest assured that he won’t miss anything important (something he made light of in a recent Instagram reel).

“Sometimes I just doze off if it’s in English,” he adds.

For many Latin American fans in the US, watching the World Cup in Spanish is a given. But for the 2026 tournament, even some people who don’t have Latin American roots or who don’t speak Spanish are opting for Telemundo over Fox. Meghan Dyer Pavs, a former elementary school teacher outside of Worcester, Massachusetts, calls Telemundo broadcasts “the best thing in American culture right now.” Having already convinced her kids and husband of her position, she recently converted her college roommate, too. Comedian Trevor Noah is also a fan, declaring Telemundo “the best coverage in town.”

This World Cup has been particularly successful for Telemundo. Last month, the network reported that it was pacing at “more than double” its audience for the 2022 tournament in Qatar. The July 5 match between Mexico and England drew in a record 23.2 million viewers for the network, according to Variety. Fox Sports, which holds the English-language broadcast rights, saw around 21.7 million viewers for the same game. And while Fox’s viewership has generally been higher than Telemundo’s for games with no connection to Latin America, Defector’s Diana Moskovitz notes that the difference is not as vast as one might expect. (Given the tension this has caused between the two networks, CNBC’s Alex Sherman reports that FIFA is potentially looking to package English- and Spanish-language US rights together for the next men’s tournament.)

Telemundo is well aware of its new viewer base. If anything, the hype around Telemundo’s World Cup coverage is the result of a deliberate strategy: The network began courting non-Spanish speakers months ago, with a Super Bowl ad featuring Owen Wilson, noted non-Latino, getting swept up in the energy of Telemundo’s commentators. And during last month’s France-Sweden match, one announcer briefly switched into English to thank viewers who don’t speak Spanish for watching.

As Spain faced Belgium in the quarterfinals last Friday, Socceria, a new soccer-themed cantina in Brooklyn, was streaming Telemundo on its screens. Owner Tania Apolinar, who hails from Torreón, Mexico, says the bar has been showing around 95% of the matches in Spanish, though it has occasionally experimented with Fox for games that don’t involve Spanish-speaking nations. “But then we kind of regret it in the moment,” she says. “It’s more fun on Telemundo.”

Fun is also a major reason why Dyer Pavs prefers the Spanish-language broadcast — she says the passionate and energetic commentary has proved more engaging for her 8- and 11-year-old kids. As someone who majored in Spanish in college, she also relishes the opportunity to practice her language skills. And it’s a chance to introduce her kids to the vibrant and joyous soccer culture of Latin America. “I talk to parents who think that in order to expose them to other cultures, we have to take a $1,000 flight to Paris or whatever,” she says. “But this is American culture. It’s just a different version of American culture on your TV.”

Serious soccer fans note that Telemundo doesn’t cut to commercials during the hydration breaks (known to habitual viewers as “las pausas de hidratación”), allowing spectators to witness key moments of tension and anticipation among players and coaches. Others cite Fox’s pro-America bent — or a general dislike of the network’s analyst, Alexi Lalas, and his support of President Donald Trump — as a reason for choosing Telemundo. Then there are budgetary considerations — watching the World Cup on Fox Sports requires either a cable or YouTube TV subscription, or a $19.99 a month subscription to Fox Sports, while the Peacock subscription tiers that include live sports start at $10.99 a month.

The real soccer heads also bristle at the nonstop, play-by-play commentating style of American announcers. “Americans generally call out every single action which makes it sound like a hockey match, which is not how they do it in England and other countries,” Josh Borock, one of the partners behind Socceria, says. “With Telemundo they kind of do that, but it sounds better in Spanish.”

For all the enthusiasm around Telemundo, its World Cup broadcasts aren’t without critics. Alex, who was watching Friday’s game at Socceria and asked to be identified only by his first name, is a fluent Spanish speaker who watches nearly every game on Telemundo, unless Argentina is playing: In his view, Argentinian announcer Cantor is blatantly biased in favor of his home country.

Courtney Nam, a Socceria patron who isn’t fluent in Spanish, said that watching on Telemundo meant she might miss some nuance in more technical moments. “But you can kind of tell what’s happening at the end of the day,” she said. More seasoned fans, like Kevin Gleason, were less concerned about their ability to follow along: “I know what I’m watching and I know what I’m seeing, and I can follow the tempo of the announcers to know how the excitement’s going.”

Still, another patron, who declined to be publicly identified, seemed frustrated when approached after the game that he couldn’t understand any of the commentary.

But for the most part, the crowd at Socceria — Latin American and non-Latin American — seemed to be there for the atmosphere. Emily Hittner said she’d been watching most of the World Cup on Telemundo because “it just feels like a more exciting way to watch the game.” Gleason said he preferred the Telemundo experience because “for me, there’s a lot more heart behind the game.” In the game’s most dynamic moments, though, the language of the commentary became entirely secondary: The audience was cheering so loudly that you could hardly hear the announcers crying “gooooool” or “golgolgolgolgol” at all.

While most of Socceria’s clientele have embraced watching the games in Spanish, Borock says it will occasionally get the odd customer who hasn’t yet caught up to the Telemundo phenomenon. Recently, he said a patron who had come to the bar to watch England play asked why the game was being shown in Spanish. “We’re a Mexican restaurant,” Borock replied.

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