100 days to the World Cup: Half a billion viewers? That's just a Tuesday for soccer

The countdown to the 2026 World Cup is on. Each day ahead of the tournament’s return to North America, Yahoo Sports will bring you an insight or moment that helps explain how the world’s biggest sporting event became what it is today.

The World Cup is 100 days away and soccer’s global reach has never been bigger.

Tuesday's Copa del Rey match between Atlético Madrid and Barcelona (3 p.m. ET, ESPN+) has the possibility of drawing a worldwide audience of 550 million viewers. That number would not even crack the 10 most-watched soccer matches ever.

A pair of El Clásicos between Real Madrid and Barcelona each brought in a worldwide audience of 650 million viewers in 2017 and 2025. That's nearly one-third of the 2022 World Cup final (1.5 billion) between Argentina and France, which saw Lionel Messi help his country to its third World Cup title.

In fact, the top seven most-watched soccer games worldwide are all World Cup finals. Other than the 2017-18 and 2025-26 El Clásicos, the only other non-World Cup final in the top 10 is the 2022 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool. That match, which Real Madrid won 1-0, saw 700 million viewers tune in around the world.

That’s the scale the World Cup operates on.