Monday's game in Volgograd, which had a 69.2% audience share at its peak, beat May's Royal Wedding for viewers and both had a central character named Harry as England captain Kane provided a thrilling twist to this particular peak-time drama with a stoppage time winner that ensured three points for his side.
From a television perspective it confirms the power of the live event but from a football point of view it shows that, despite the global reach of the Premier League, the national team's matches at a big tournament still retain an ability to reach out beyond everyday supporters to those who do not normally take an interest in the game.
From work colleagues heading home to watch to children recreating Kane's winner in the playground on Tuesday morning, the Tunisia match had a reach way beyond any other fixture from the 2017/18 season.
Liverpool's Champions League Final was a big event but the lack of terrestrial coverage will always mean that the floating supporter does not tune in while the FA Cup Final remains on the BBC but doesn’t stop the nation as it used to.
Gareth Southgate and the Football Association have clearly realised that the national team needed to cultivate a more favourable image and the manager earned plenty of praise in the build-up to the Tunisia game for having done just that.
With wall-to-wall television coverage then projecting that image to a huge audience and the players hopefully backing it up with a good showing on the pitch it may put the FA in a stronger position to do the things that it needs to at grassroots level and for clubs in the lower reaches of the pyramid system where the administrative burden of running clubs is causing huge headaches.
A better functioning game can't just come from a late Harry Kane winner but it certainly won’t do any harm to it.