On Wednesday, Australia’s magic run in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup ended following a 3-1 defeat to England in the tournament semifinals. But the Matildas’ path to the semifinals captivated the nation, and Wednesday’s match drew a record-shattering audience.
Per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, preliminary data from OzTAM indicates that an average audience of 7.13 million watched the match in Australia, peaking at 11.15 million. Of those 7.13 million, 6.17 million watched on the Seven Network, and 957,000 more watched on the streaming service 7plus. This data does not include out-of-home viewing.
Through an American lens, that doesn’t seem impressive. Many live sporting events, including soccer matches, have topped seven million viewers. Every NFL window airing on broadcast TV clears seven million with ease.
However, Australia has a much smaller population than the United States (call it somewhere around 26 million, compared to about 333 million in the US), and thus, has far fewer television households. The audience of 7.13 million is a record-high since the usage of the OzTAM measurement system began in 2001, and the streaming audience also set the mark for Australia’s most-streamed event ever.
Overall, this can only be a good thing for the growth of the women’s game in Australia. We saw something similar happen in England in 2019 when the Lionesses’ semifinal loss to the US averaged 11.7 million viewers, more than the all-England Champions League Final between Tottenham and Liverpool a month earlier. Three years later, England’s Euro 2022 triumph over Germany shattered records in both nations.
[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]
