New York, New York - Driven by an enlarged 48-team format, the 2026 World Cup created a stadium attendance high while FIFA boss Gianni Infantino said that TV viewership broke the previous record "many, many times over."

Speaking on Friday, the president of world soccer's governing body acknowledged that the records had been boosted because "this is the largest World Cup in history by far, by many times, actually, welcoming 16 additional teams."

But, he added, it "has exceeded all expectations."

In its pre-event projections, FIFA, which folds World Cup income into revenue for the whole year, anticipated record revenues exceeding $8 billion for 2026.

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That is a 56% increase compared to 2022 when the last World Cup was held in Qatar.

Prior to the third-place play-off on Saturday and the final on Sunday, FIFA had already officially recorded over 6.6 million fans in stadiums across the host nations of the US, Canada, and Mexico.

On Monday, after Spain beat Argentina to become world champions, media outlets calculated a total of 6.81 million spectators across the 104 matches, though no official figures were yet available from FIFA.

The five-million-spectator mark was surpassed during the round-of-32 match between France and Sweden. The previous ticket sales record was 3,587,538 in the US in 1994.

This time, stadiums were filled to a record 99.7% of capacity, despite rumbling controversy regarding high ticket prices. The average attendance was 65,351 per match.

"TV viewership records were shattered, both in the host countries and across the globe," FIFA said on Saturday. It has yet to release detailed numbers, but in Friday's press conference, President Donald Trump threw out the figure of "nearly six billion viewers."

That number should grow.

The 2022 World Cup final in Qatar, when Argentina beat France, had previously been the most-watched match in the tournament's history, drawing 1.5 billion viewers and surpassing the record set in 2018, when 1.12 billion people tuned in.

Ahead of the 2026 tournament, TV rights were projected to rise by 34% to nearly $4 billion and sponsorship by 21%.

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FIFA also said the competition had been a hit on social media and the internet.

It estimated that "by the end of the round of 16, 5.2 billion people – nearly two-thirds of the global population – had engaged with the competition at least once."

Of the $3.7 billion FIFA planned to spend on the World Cup, one-quarter was allocated to participating national teams and the clubs releasing their international players, with the tournament's total prize pool increased by 15% in late April to $871 million – up from $440 million in Qatar.