Topline:
Southern California farmers are conserving a lot more Colorado River water, but that’s also causing the Salton Sea to dry up faster.
Why it matters: Since Southern California farmers agreed to a major new deal with the federal government to cut water use significantly, the Salton Sea has dropped about 10 inches and the sea has shrunk by some 3,500 acres, exposing more toxic dust from the lakebed.
Keep reading...to learn more about addressing this conservation conundrum.
Southern California farmers are conserving a lot more Colorado River water, but that’s also causing the Salton Sea to dry up faster.
That’s because the Salton Sea is filled primarily by agricultural runoff from farms in the Imperial Valley in far Southern California. Those farms have a single source of water: the Colorado River.
The Salton Sea is a landlocked, shallow lake in Riverside and Imperial counties. The lakebed has been contaminated for more than 100 years with pesticides and other chemicals that create dangerous air pollution for surrounding communities.
Balancing conservation with the impact on the Salton Sea is a long-running conundrum.
“It feels that we are responsible for conserving the Colorado River for the good of the many,” said Silvia Paz, director of grassroots group Alianza Coachella Valley, which is working to address the impacts of pollution from the Salton Sea.
“And on the flip side, I don't think it's fair that one particular community that's already an environmental justice community has to bear that responsibility — almost alone it feels like,” Paz said.
The Salton Sea is part of the massive Colorado River delta. For millennia, the area flooded periodically as the river shifted across the sandy delta region spanning across present-day Southern California, southern Arizona and northern Mexico.
Lake Cahuilla is some of the last evidence of that era of flooding before the river was controlled and diverted via dams and canals. Today, the river no longer meets the sea.
The Salton Sea as we now know it is California’s largest lake. And it's man made. It was first created back in 1905, when an irrigation canal gate failed and the river flooded into the historic lakebed of Lake Cahuilla.
Since then, the sea has been fed by agricultural runoff. Once a popular vacation destination in the 1950s, as farmers got more efficient with water use and climate change-driven heat worsened, the lake — and its tourists — has been drying up, and the lakebed has become increasingly exposed.
Researchers are finding that a naturally occurring toxin plus chemicals from farm runoff in the drying lakebed are worsening air quality and contributing to higher rates of asthma and other respiratory illness in surrounding communities.
Though it’s saltier than the ocean, the Salton Sea remains a biodiversity hotspot for fish and migratory birds.
Imperial Valley farmers in Southern California use more Colorado River water than anyone. They grow primarily hay as well as leafy greens and other produce that feeds much of the country and the world.
In August, the Imperial Irrigation District agreed to a major new deal with the federal government to cut its water use by an amount that’s more than double the amount the entire state of Nevada uses in a year. The cuts will happen through 2026.
And they're needed: Two wet years have helped, but the risk of Lake Mead reaching deadpool — meaning the water level has dropped so low that it can no longer flow downstream — remains a looming possibility. That could cut off the main water supply for tens of millions of people and farms downstream.
The first phase of this new program started this summer, and included a program where participating forage crop growers didn’t water those crops for 49 days, during the hottest part of the year. The main crop grown in the Imperial Valley is alfalfa.
In return, the Imperial Irrigation District got $589 million from the feds to pay those farmers who can then invest in more water-efficient technologies, pay workers, or otherwise invest in their farms.
The program was a success, said Tina Shields, the Imperial Irrigation District’s water manager. She said the district cut water use by about 175,000 acre-feet this summer. For comparison, the entire city of L.A. uses about 500,000 acre-feet of water every year.
The short duration of the program had little impact on the economy. If anything, it helped farmers stay in business because hay markets are bad right now — that’s a reason why so many farmers participated this summer, Shields said.
Plus, water use in the area is down in general because October has been abnormally hot, so watering would just burn crops.
Since that program ended at the end of September, the surface elevation of the Salton Sea has dropped about 10 inches and the sea shrunk by some 3,500 acres, exposing more dust from the lakebed, said Paz, whose group along with researchers from UCLA and the Pacific Institute measured the decline.
“Our communities don't have the luxury to escape the dust that is blown into the air,” Paz said. “Siloing this issue as a water-only issue leads to all these other consequences.”
In its review, the federal government found the new agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District, or IID, would have no significant new environmental impacts to the Salton Sea and surrounding communities. But many people in the area disagree.
“The reality is that, for our communities, it's not a negligible impact,” Paz said. “This is a cumulative impact to the conditions that we're already suffering.”
Research has shown that asthma rates and other respiratory diseases are far higher than average among communities near the Salton Sea.
Those impacts are why the Sierra Club recently sued the IID about the conservation deal. The organization says the district did not do a proper environmental review of the impacts to the Salton Sea and nearby communities.
“We believe that they should be paying the bill for some of the impacts,” said Richard Miller, director of the Sierra Club’s San Diego chapter.
The IID argues it's already done it's part to address the issues caused by a drying Salton Sea. Shields said the district only agreed to this recent round of additional conservation efforts because they negotiated that $250 million in federal dollars would go towards accelerating the state’s Salton Sea efforts.
“That funding is conditioned on IID implementing these additional conservation efforts,” Shields said. “So we up front took care of the Salton Sea from our perspective.”
But it’s the state that is primarily responsible for addressing the pollution impacts of a shrinking Salton Sea. They are behind on their 10-year plan, which aims to restore nearly 30,000 acres by 2028 of exposed lakebed to native desert habitat and man-made ponds that support endangered fish, migratory birds and reducing pollution.
In recent years, restoration efforts have accelerated, in large part thanks to that $250 million in funding from the Biden-Harris Administration, said Miguel Hernandez, a spokesperson for the state’s Salton Sea Management project, in a statement to LAist.
He wrote that, so far, the state has completed more than 2,000 acres of habitat restoration and dust control, with some 6,500 acres currently under construction and major construction complete for a 4,100-acre conservation area — additional federal funding is helping to expand that project by 750 acres.
See a map of completed and ongoing Salton Sea restoration projects here.
“IID is doing the right thing conserving water to stabilize the Colorado River, and our federal partners stepped up to provide funding for this water conservation and for California’s ongoing projects at the Sea to reduce dust emissions and restore habitat,” Hernandez wrote.
But Paz said the sea is shrinking faster than projects are being built to cover the exposed lakebed.
“We need to balance this out. They need to move a lot faster,” Paz said.
Everyone agrees the ongoing restoration efforts are key to addressing the impacts of a shrinking Salton Sea. But balancing necessary conservation with the impacts of that conservation can seem like an impossible problem to solve.
“It’s the rock and a hard place,” said Shields. “As we get more efficient, the downside is the Salton Sea has less water. It's a tough thing with an inland body of water that has no outlet and the only inlet is receiving drainage water from the adjacent areas. So it's a balancing act to keep everybody happy.”
It’s the rock and a hard place.
Shields continued: “But if the Colorado River crashes, that's not something you just fix the next year,” So we're going to do everything we can to ensure that our communities have a reliable and safe water supply. And it may be that there are impacts to the Salton Sea, but without the Colorado River, there would be no Salton Sea.”
Paz said she supports and understands the conservation needs, but that means that policymakers and water managers need to think more holistically about the mitigation efforts.
“If this is the only way, we need to broaden how we think about how we’re protecting and preparing our communities,” Paz said.
She said accelerating the state's restoration projects is essential, plus funding for air filters and weatherizing more homes, particularly mobile homes that house farmworkers, for which funding is lacking, she said.
But Paz said mitigation for conservation impacts to the Salton Sea could go beyond direct impacts, to improving general quality of life, especially as desert communities face some of the quickest accelerating impacts of the climate crisis.
One example? A new plan envisioned by the community and supported by local governments to build a commuter rail line connecting all the Coachella Valley communities, that will also add green space, shade and an emergency shelter to help communities ride out disasters and excessive heat.
“We’re talking about being very mindful of how our built environment is being developed to address the needs that we have, particularly when it comes to climate resilience,” Paz said.
She added that funding from Proposition 4, which is on the November ballot, would help speed up some existing efforts.
“We're very hopeful that Proposition 4 gets support statewide and that that funding will become available,” Paz said. (Update: Voters did indeed pass that proposition).
As for the state’s plan, it’s estimated it will cost more than a billion dollars to complete the necessary habitat restoration and dust mitigation efforts.
Among other things, a large chunk of the $250 million from the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act will go towards a more than 4,000-acre restoration area to plant habitat that supports migratory birds and reduces dust pollution, said Mike Lynes, public policy director for Audubon California. Other ongoing projects are showing preliminary promise.
“We cannot lose our hope,” said Paz. “Transforming our communities takes a lot of work, but at the end of it, this is a work of hope and that is what allows us to keep envisioning and to keep trying. Because I believe that a different future is possible.”
Topline:
Tthe state-funded Cal-Bridge program is helping diverse students pursue their dreams of landing a doctorate in the sciences and joining the next generation of STEM professors. The program provides financial support, research opportunities and diverse mentors of similar backgrounds.
The background: Cal-Bridge was founded in 2014 to help undergraduates at Cal State campuses pursue a doctorate in STEM in partnership with the University of California, helping to close the diversity gap in science fields. About 70% of the program’s 406 students have been admitted to doctorate programs. Three quarters of the program’s students are of color, almost half are women, and nearly two-thirds are first generation.
The context: Studies have noted that the climate of STEM higher education programs is often unwelcoming for some minority populations. Women make up over half of the undergraduate student population at Cal State campuses, yet account for only 36% of the system’s STEM students. At UC campuses, only 24% of STEM undergraduates are Latino or Hispanic, 4% are African American and 1% are American Indian.
Why it matters: From Cal-Bridge’s first cohort of five undergraduate students, the program has grown to support about 60 each year. It has expanded from astronomy and physics to now include computer science and math. Students in the program can receive stipends, tuition assistance, mentorship and professional development.
For Tré Willingham, pursuing a doctorate degree at UC Irvine has felt isolating at times. Often the only Black student in his science classes, he recalls being the last one to be chosen when activities required a lab partner. He also has never had a Black professor.
“It’s very disheartening to never see anyone that looks like you,” said Willingham, who studies applied physics. “It makes it hard to believe that you can get there, and especially get there and actually be yourself.”
For Willingham and students like him, the state-funded Cal-Bridge program is helping them pursue their dreams of landing a doctorate in the sciences and joining the next generation of STEM professors. The program provides financial support, research opportunities and diverse mentors of similar backgrounds.
Such mentors make “it much easier to start to navigate these spaces and also believe that you can get to the other end,” Willingham said.
Cal-Bridge was founded in 2014 to help undergraduates at Cal State campuses pursue a doctorate in STEM in partnership with the University of California, helping to close the diversity gap in science fields. About 70% of the program’s 406 students have been admitted to doctorate programs. Three quarters of the program’s students are of color, almost half are women, and nearly two-thirds are first generation.
Studies have noted that the climate of STEM higher education programs is often unwelcoming for some minority populations. Women make up over half of the undergraduate student population at Cal State campuses, yet account for only 36% of the system’s STEM students. At UC campuses, only 24% of STEM undergraduates are Latino or Hispanic, 4% are African American and 1% are American Indian.
From Cal-Bridge’s first cohort of five undergraduate students, the program has grown to support about 60 each year. It has expanded from astronomy and physics to now include computer science and math. Students in the program can receive stipends, tuition assistance, mentorship and professional development.
But the journey to diversifying the STEM teaching field is very long.
So far, 15 Cal-Bridge participants have earned a doctorate. It takes students about eight years after joining Cal-Bridge, usually done during their junior year, to complete a doctorate — two years as an undergraduate and six years to complete their doctorate education.
“It’s only been 12 years since we started, so only this small group is getting their Ph.D. right now,” said Dr. Alexander Rudolph, Cal-Bridge’s executive director and founder. “But eventually we expect there to be more like 30 to 40 to 50 a year getting their Ph.Ds.”
The state Legislature has given $14 million over recent years to the program, which also has a sliver left over from an older National Science Foundation grant.
The program might also get a helpful boost in the Legislature as California pushes back against federal efforts targeting university equity initiatives.
Democratic Assemblymember David Alvarez of Chula Vista introduced Assembly Bill 2660 in April to codify Cal-Bridge as a coordinated partnership between community colleges, Cal State universities and University of California campuses. Rudolph hopes that will help secure annual or multi-year funding for Cal-Bridge in lieu of making requests each year.
Alvarez told CalMatters that as the federal administration cut back on student loans and grants for Hispanic-Serving Institutions, California should do more to support its students.
“The lack of representation from first-generation students in the Ph.D. level of education speaks for itself,” said Alvarez. “We need to do something in California to demonstrate that we still believe that we have strength in diversity of our Ph.Ds, of our academia, and this (Assembly bill) is one way to try.”
Willingham, the UC Irvine student, hadn’t considered pursuing a doctorate earlier in his life. Now 31, the first-generation scholar is pursuing his doctorate with the goal of one day becoming a professor.
“No one around me was a doctor of anything,” said Willingham about his family and friends growing up.
Willingham grew up in Littleton, Colorado where he attended Columbine High School. After high school, his father, who had served in the Air Force, and Willingham moved to Atlanta. In 2017, he moved to California where he began his higher education journey. He is now the father of two children, ages 12 and two, balancing family time with his studies.
Today, Willingham’s research focuses on creating new quantum materials and exploring how they could be used in future sensors and electronic devices.
Cal-Bridge has four programs: undergraduate, summer research, doctoral and postdoctoral. The undergraduate program is open to STEM students at Cal State campuses and community college students who plan to transfer to a Cal State. It receives up to 100 applications per year; about 60 students were accepted this past year.
Willingham attended El Camino College and Compton College simultaneously to finish his associate degree quickly, then joined Cal-Bridge’s undergraduate program after transferring to Cal Poly Pomona. There, the program gave him $10,000 during each of his junior and senior years, which helped him get a car to commute to school from Los Angeles and stay focused by working fewer hours as a tutor.
“I was able to just sort of focus my attention a little better, not having to always think about how I’m going to pay the next bill,” said Willingham.
Later in Cal-Bridge’s doctoral program, Willingham received $40,000 in financial support for his first year of graduate school at UC Irvine. He used $16,000 to pay his tuition and the rest for living expenses.
It took Dr. Katy Rodriguez Wimberly, a Cal-Bridge alum, 13 years to become a research faculty member. She is now an astrophysics assistant professor at Cal State San Bernardino.
Wimberly researches near-field cosmology, studying neighboring galaxies that may be some of the first ever formed.
“It’s almost like galactic archaeology, like I’m looking at these little almost-fossil galaxies to learn more about the early universe and where everything came from,” said Wimberly.
She is also now the director of mentorship for Cal-Bridge. During her junior year as an undergraduate, she joined Cal-Bridge’s first cohort, helping her imagine what being an astronomer would be like.
The mentors and the program’s monthly workshops showed her that while she didn’t see many Latina women like her teaching STEM on her campus, she could do it. When she was an undergraduate at Cal State Long Beach, she said, there were only two women professors from about 20 faculty in her department, and none of them Black or Latino.
Cal-Bridge provided Latino mentors she wasn’t finding anywhere else.
“It wasn’t like they were teaching me in a classroom, but they did kind of provide that cultural and kind of identity support,” said Wimberly.
Wimberly had applied to 11 doctorate programs as a senior undergraduate and was denied by all of them. Next, she applied and was accepted to Cal State Long Beach to pursue a master’s in physics. There, she raised her GPA, reapplied to doctorate programs and was accepted to UC Irvine. She graduated in 2021 with her doctorate in physics.
At UC Irvine, Wimberly created a peer mentorship program for Cal-Bridge students as a way for alumni and graduate students of the program to support the undergraduate students. Mentors and mentees meet in small groups once a month, as well as have one-on-one meetings.
“I structured it in a way to be more like, this is just your older cousin that’s telling you how to get through things,” Wimberly said.
After she finished her doctorate, she had a three-year, full-time fellowship with the National Science Foundation. She served at UC Riverside with her former mentor, Laura Sales, an astronomer from Argentina and associate professor at the university.
Learning from Sales made her feel more comfortable embracing her identity as a Latina. Sales taught her that she didn’t have to be an expert in all areas of astronomy, but that she would work alongside experts in different areas.
Now as a professor herself for the last three years at Cal State San Bernardino, Wimberly offers the same mentorship to her students. Anytime she sees a Latina student who doesn’t have support from someone with a similar background, she tries to provide that support.
“Just because I know it can be so difficult,” said Wimberly.
Claire Rogers, a student at UC Irvine pursuing a doctorate in physics, knew she wanted to attend graduate school, but she didn’t realize how isolating the experience would be as the only woman in the room. She is a Cal-Bridge doctorate scholar researching observational astrophysics, looking for planets outside of the solar system to determine if there is life on those planets. She also focuses on how stellar astrophysics affects measurements when looking for planets.
Rogers was an undergraduate at Cal Poly Humboldt and joined Cal-Bridge during the first year the program expanded to her campus.
“Cal-Bridge was really helpful for providing a network of students at the same phase of their career at different CSU campuses but still working towards similar goals,” said Rogers.
She said that since the department on her campus was small, Cal-Bridge allowed her to connect with students at other campuses who were in similar positions.
The program provided her two mentors, a professor at her campus and a professor at UC Berkeley. The program also offered her guidance in applying for graduate school.
“I’m sure it made a huge difference in my grad school essays, getting that feedback,” Rogers said.
Rogers participated in an undergraduate summer research program at the University of Wyoming through Cal-Bridge, where she dabbled in astrophysics research for the first time. Cal-Bridge’s summer program is open to community college and Cal State undergraduate students and allows students to participate in research projects at partner institutions. Out of around 200 applications, only 50 to 60 students get accepted to the summer program.
“I really like spending time at a telescope … and dealing with all of the problems that come up when you are running a telescope overnight,” she said.
She was usually the only woman in her undergraduate classes, and in graduate school there were only three women in her cohort of 22 students.
“I got very accustomed to being the only woman in a room,” said Rogers.
She mentioned feeling isolated during her first year at UC Irvine, noticing that her classmates rarely showed up when she organized study groups and that the men in her lab would change the conversation when she entered the room.
“I had a really hard time my first year with reconciling that I felt very unwelcome,” said Rogers.
She eventually found a support network outside of her original cohort, getting closer to other doctoral scholars in Cal-Bridge and having monthly movie nights together.
“Cal-Bridge has made a huge difference to my career and my, sort of, finding my space in this field,” said Rogers.
Rogers hopes to one day become a professor and be able to teach while continuing her research in observational astrophysics.
“When I was new to physics it made a big difference for me to have women professors,” said Rogers. “I think it’s important for future students to also have that resource and that support, and I would like to be able to provide that.”
Brittany Oceguera is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.
Topline:
California scored another win against the Trump administration in their battle over how to address the homelessness crisis here and nationwide.
Why now? A federal judge this week shot down the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2025 attempt to divert money away from permanent housing and instead fund temporary shelters and programs that require sobriety. But the judge stopped short of banning the Trump administration from making such changes in the future.
How we got here: In November, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said jurisdictions applying for about $4 billion in federal Continuum of Care funding can’t spend more than 30% of it on permanent housing — a move that would result in a significant cut to the type of long-term housing that for years has been a cornerstone of the fight against homelessness. Last year, California communities spent about 90% their share of that money on permanent housing.
The background: A group of states, including California quickly sued. San Francisco, Santa Clara County and a group of national homelessness nonprofits filed a separate lawsuit. In December, a federal judge in Rhode Island temporarily blocked the changes. In February, Congress ordered HUD to renew grants from 2025 under the old rules.
California scored another win against the Trump administration in their battle over how to address the homelessness crisis here and nationwide.
A federal judge this week shot down the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2025 attempt to divert money away from permanent housing and instead fund temporary shelters and programs that require sobriety. But the judge stopped short of banning the Trump administration from making such changes in the future.
“The federal court’s decision to reject the Trump-Vance Administration’s attempt to disrupt essential housing services for people experiencing homelessness, including families, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, is both appropriate and just,” Renee Willis, chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, wrote in a news release.
In November, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said jurisdictions applying for about $4 billion in federal Continuum of Care funding can’t spend more than 30% of it on permanent housing — a move that would result in a significant cut to the type of long-term housing that for years has been a cornerstone of the fight against homelessness.
Last year, California communities spent about 90% their share of that money on permanent housing.
A group of states, including California quickly sued. San Francisco, Santa Clara County and a group of national homelessness nonprofits filed a separate lawsuit. In December, a federal judge in Rhode Island temporarily blocked the changes. In February, Congress ordered HUD to renew grants from 2025 under the old rules.
This week, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy partially granted the plaintiffs’ request for summary judgement in both cases. She ruled that the federal agency did not try to foresee the harm its “breakneck” transition away from the country’s longstanding “housing first” model – which prioritizes getting people into housing without first forcing them to seek treatment – would have on the country’s homeless individuals.
“Overall, the actions undertaken by HUD in attempting to hastily eliminate its housing first approach serve as the hallmark of unreasoned decision making,” McElroy wrote.
HUD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ruling wraps up both cases, unless the Trump administration decides to appeal.
But the fight isn’t over. The Trump administration tried again last month, moving to shift 2026 federal funding away from permanent housing and the housing first framework. Housing advocates tried to challenge that latest shift in the prior lawsuit. The judge rejected that attempt, but welcomed the plaintiffs to file a new lawsuit.
The housing advocates said they are weighing their next steps.
Topline:
As if Southern California’s air quality hasn’t been bad enough lately, air quality officials are warning much of Southern California to brace for hazardous air over the July 4 weekend.
Where the greatest risks are: Areas around downtown Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley, and northern Orange County may see hazardous air on the evening of July 4 due to particle pollution from fireworks, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Riverside County and San Bernardino could see hazardous air the next day as the particles from fireworks move east and combine with the region’s elevated levels of air pollution.
Other risks: The Inland Empire and most of Los Angeles and Orange counties — that is, nearly all of SoCal — may see unhealthy air at times throughout the weekend, as it does every year.
Why it’s unhealthy: Exposure to particle pollution can cause chronic coughs in healthy people and flare-ups of symptoms for people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to the American Lung Association. If you’re in an area where people set off personal fireworks, the organization said those can be even more dangerous, since they’re closer to the ground and the air we breathe.
What to do: Stay inside if you can, and avoid physical activity outside. Unlike the recent fire at the Lineage Logistics warehouse in Boyle Heights, air quality officials say running air conditioners in your home will help, as will air purifiers, though they recommend against turning on fans that bring in outside air.
Other issues: Visibility in Orange County and the Inland Empire may be low Saturday night due to a soupy blend of high humidity and particle pollution.
How long the advisory lasts: It’s in place from 5 p.m. July 4 until 3 p.m. July 5.
Topline:
As if Southern California’s air quality hasn’t been bad enough lately, air quality officials are warning much of the region to brace for hazardous air over the July 4 weekend.
Where the greatest risks are: Areas around downtown Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley, and northern Orange County may see hazardous air on the evening of July 4 due to particle pollution from fireworks, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Riverside County and San Bernardino could see hazardous air the next day as the particles from fireworks move east and combine with the region’s elevated levels of air pollution.
Other risks: The Inland Empire and most of Los Angeles and Orange counties — that is, nearly all of SoCal — may see unhealthy air at times throughout the weekend, as they do every year.
Why it’s unhealthy: Exposure to particle pollution can cause chronic coughs in healthy people and flare-ups of symptoms for people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to the American Lung Association. If you’re in an area where people set off personal fireworks, the organization said those can be even more dangerous, since they’re closer to the ground and the air we breathe.
What to do: Stay inside if you can, and avoid physical activity outside. Unlike the recent fire at the Lineage Logistics warehouse in Boyle Heights, air quality officials say running air conditioners in your home will help, as will air purifiers, though they recommend against turning on fans that bring in outside air.
Other issues: Visibility in Orange County and the Inland Empire may be low Saturday night due to a soupy blend of high humidity and particle pollution.
How long the advisory lasts: It’s in place from 5 p.m. July 4 until 3 p.m. July 5.
Topline:
The U.S. telecasts of this summer's World Cup games are drawing a record number of viewers. Fox Sports, which broadcasts the games in English, reports an average of 5 million viewers per match across 72 group stage matches. And Telemundo says nearly half of all World Cup viewers in the country are watching its Spanish language coverage.
Why now? At Café Brasil in Culver City, Giselle Rosas noted the growing popularity of soccer in the U.S. "thanks to immigrants," and she said it's more fun to watch the World Cup in Spanish. "A million percent. We like the excitement," said Rosas, "the feeling, the sentiment, the ambience, it's a night and day difference."
Why it matters: That kind of passion, to date, has translated to an average of 4.6 million World Cup viewers of Spanish-language sportscasts on Telemundo and Peacock streaming services per match, according to NBCUniversal. "This is the most watched World Cup ever in Spanish language in this country. The numbers are just mind blowing, really," says Miguel Lorenzo, a senior vice president at Telemundo Deportes.
Read on... for more on what might be behind the demographic shift.
The U.S. telecasts of this summer's World Cup games are drawing a record number of viewers. Fox Sports, which broadcasts the games in English, reports an average of 5 million viewers per match across 72 group stage matches. And Telemundo says nearly half of all World Cup viewers in the country are watching its Spanish language coverage.
Wednesday night, fans celebrated as the U.S. men's national soccer team knocked out Bosnia Herzegovina's team two-nil during the latest round of the Copa Mundial, as it's known in Spanish.
At Café Brasil in Culver City, California, Giselle Rosas and her mother Graciela Reyes, who were both born in Mexico, cheered for the U.S. team, along with Telemundo's famously exuberant announcer Andrés Cantor.
"That's the best part for everybody," Reyes said, imitating Cantor's long "Goooooool" calls.
Rosas noted the growing popularity of soccer in the U.S. "thanks to immigrants," and she said it's more fun to watch the World Cup in Spanish.
"A million percent. We like the excitement," said Rosas, "the feeling, the sentiment, the ambience, it's a night and day difference."
That kind of passion, to date, has translated to an average of 4.6 million World Cup viewers of Spanish-language sportscasts on Telemundo and Peacock streaming services per match, according to NBCUniversal.
"This is the most watched World Cup ever in Spanish language in this country. The numbers are just mind blowing, really," says Miguel Lorenzo, a senior vice president at Telemundo Deportes.
"Basically, half of the country of the United States is watching the World Cup in Spanish on Telemundo. But we also know that only 20% of the U.S. population is Hispanic," says Lorenzo. "We're seeing audiences that are bilingual, that are Spanish dominant, that speak English enjoying World Cup coverage."
According to Nielsen ratings, 20% of Telemundo's World Cup viewers speak English as their primary language. And overall, Lorenzo says the viewership on its telecasts has increased by 122% since the 2022 World Cup Games.
He says excitement has been highest for the winning matches by Mexico and the U.S., and the network's social media platforms have surpassed a record-breaking one billion views.
"I can't tell you how many comments I've seen where people are saying, 'I don't speak a lick of Spanish, but I want to watch it on Telemundo because it just sounds more exciting. And maybe by the end of the World Cup, I'll learn Spanish,'" Lorenzo says. "Joy and excitement and drama: it's language agnostic, it's universal."
Unlike Fox, which runs commercials during hydration breaks for the players, Telemundo keeps its cameras on the field. That's something very much appreciated by fans like comedian Trevor Noah.
"We're seeing the players on the pitch discussing what's happening. You see which coach is more stressed…This is part of the game," Noah said during one of the World Cup parties he hosts on his YouTube channel. "When you cut to ads, you lose the stress, you lose the joy, the anticipation. So shout out again, Telemundo: Really, really amazing coverage."
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