United States' Julie Johnston challenges Germany's Celia Sasic during the second half of a semifinal in the Women's World Cup soccer tournament on Tuesday. | Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press via AP Fox vindicated on Women's World Cup coverage

The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup is turning out to be a boon for Fox, on multiple levels.

The ratings have been extremely strong, bolstered by the U.S. national team plowing through the competitive field with relative ease. On Tuesday night, the U.S.-Germany semifinal match averaged 8.4 million viewers, peaking at 12.1 million from 8:30-8:45 p.m. If you were on Twitter during that time, you proably saw a stream of celebratory tweets tied to both of the U.S. goals, or Germany's failed penalty kick.

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That followed a U.S.-China quarterfinal match that averaged 5.7 million viewers. Both trail behind only the 1999 final (17.98M) and 2011 final (13.46M), both of which featured the U.S. team. There is a strong chance that the 2015 final will be the most-watched Women’s World Cup game of all time.

The Women’s World Cup ratings are boosted by the fact that the games are being played in Canada, with its U.S.-friendly timezones, making an all-time record all more probable for Sunday.

The Women’s World Cup has long been thought of as a second-tier tournament, not just by TV networks and marketers, but by FIFA itself. The matches for this year’s World Cup are being played on artificial turf, despite strong objections by the athletes, who argue that turf would never be considered for the Men’s World Cup. FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who may or may not be stepping aside from that role in the near future, infamously suggested in 2004 that female players should wear tighter, smaller shorts to boost interest and viewership in the Women’s World Cup. Blatter will not attend Sunday's final, the first time he has missed the event.

Blatter's viewpoint certainly seems outmoded however, given the 2015 tourney’s success in the U.S. The enormous ratings for the 2015 event rival those of the 2014 Men’s World Cup, which aired last year on the networks of ESPN and ABC.

The TV rights for the tournament are now in the hands of Fox Sports through 2026, and the investment is already paying off.

Fox poached many of ESPN’s top soccer analysts, making the transition easier on viewers. The result has been broadcasts that have been received much more warmly than Fox’s U.S. Open golf coverage, which aired last month to mixed reviews.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges ahead, of course. The 2018 Men’s World Cup is being held in Russia, which has some political issues, to go along with its long time zone difference.

The 2022 games are slated to be held in Qatar, which is something of a double-whammy for Fox: not only is the time difference bad, but the Cup is scheduled to played in November rather than the typical June-July. That means it will interfere with Fox’s N.F.L. coverage, causing significant scheduling headaches. It also interferes with the top European league schedules.

Both World Cups are being investigated as part of the FIFA corruption scandal, raising the possibility that either one or both are moved to a different country.

For now, however, executives at Fox have a reason to smile. And Sunday night in Vancouver, you can be sure executives there will be raising a Molson (or, more likely a Budweiser—FIFA’s official sponsor) in celebration, regardless of whether the U.S. wins.