The United States is hosting soccer’s biggest event on its own soil, and the two biggest games before the final kick off in the middle of a workday.
France meets Spain on Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, followed by England against Argentina on Wednesday at the same hour at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, as USA Today confirmed this weekend. Three of the four remaining nations are European. For their fans back home, that afternoon window in Texas and Georgia lands squarely in prime time.
American viewers don’t get the same courtesy, and they’re saying so.
GettyNEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 16: People look on as Austin Franklin and Kevin Akoto, FOX One Chief World Cup Watchers, watch the World Cup in Times Square in New York City. Franklin and Akoto, two content creators, were amongst the thousands of applicants who uploaded videos on social media pitching for the role of World Cup Watchers, who applied to watch 104 games at this World Cup in a custom-built viewing cube in the heart of Times Square.
Fans Question World Cup Semifinal Scheduling
The backlash arrived fast and loud on social media once the kickoff times went out.
“3 p.m. start times for the World Cup semis in the middle of the week is not particularly ideal,” one fan wrote in a relatively restrained take, as quoted by the Daily Mail. Another was blunter. “One of the dumbest ideas to have these World Cup semifinals at 12 p.m. on a Tuesday and Wednesday.” That fan was apparently located in the Pacific Time Zone, where the games do, indeed, start at noon.
A Facebook user, Mike Leslie, pushed the complaint toward the tournament’s stated mission.
“Why are the World Cup semifinals at 3 p.m. ET/2 p.m. CT? Are you trying to grow the game in the US… or not? They should be in primetime,” he wrote in a post shared widely among frustrated fans.
The frustration lands harder given the circumstances. Team USA is out of its own World Cup, stripped of the home-nation storyline that typically drives casual American interest deep into a tournament. Weekday afternoon kickoffs for the semifinals, critics argue, do little to capture whatever audience remains.
FIFA Defends Its Scheduling Formula
FIFA has offered its own explanation, though not one aimed specifically at the semifinal complaints. Manolo Zubiria, the tournament’s chief tournament officer for the United States, walked through the thinking behind the full 104-match schedule when it was unveiled in December, calling it the climax of a two-year planning process. He said the schedule accounted for “the weather on site and the time back home in participating teams’ countries, to the recovery and potential travel facing players and fans,” according to FIFA’s own recap of the announcement. “We’ve tried to basically strike the right balance,” Zubiria said.
Zubiria struck a similar note defending the 3 p.m. ET slot for the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium, telling The Athletic that broader television reach outweighs domestic convenience for FIFA’s marquee matches. “The more people you can bring to this game around the world, the better,” he said, adding that heat-mitigation measures would be in place, as quoted by The Athletic.
That global math is exactly what irritates American fans. A 3 p.m. ET kickoff becomes 8 p.m. in London and 9 p.m. across much of continental Europe, precisely the kind of slot that maximizes overseas viewership and ad revenue, according to SportsPro.
Not everyone in the US objects. “Just cause it’s in the US doesn’t mean the US is the core audience,” one fan countered, according to the Daily Mail, while others noted the early start lets families watch together and beats rush-hour traffic to the stadium.
The louder faction wants FIFA to borrow the NFL’s Super Bowl playbook and lock marquee US games into a 6:30 p.m. ET window. That’s not happening for the semifinals. The final, at least, arrives on a Sunday with a 3 p.m. ET start considerably friendlier to the country hosting it.
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