With an audience of 25 million viewers for Sunday’s game between the United States and Portugal, the World Cup is moving into elite territory as a sports property on American television. Ratings for the game were the highest for any soccer game telecast in America and reached more viewers than events like the N.B.A. finals or the World Series.

Sunday’s game, which ended in a 2-2 tie after Portugal scored a late goal, attracted a total of 24.7 million viewers across two television networks, ESPN and Univision. The ESPN audience alone — 18.2 million viewers — set a record for a soccer game on American television. The previous record, for the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, which was won by the United States, was 17.9 million viewers. That game was on a broadcast network — ABC — rather than cable television.

The Spanish-language Univision, which also aired the game, had an audience of 6.5 million viewers (up from nearly five million viewers for the United States’ opening game, against Ghana). Add in the average audience of 500,000 ESPN announced had streamed the game and the viewership surpassed 25 million.