One of the more impressive viewership growths in recent times comes from the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 tournament, at least per data released by tournament organizer UEFA and its comparisons to previous years. The organization announced Wednesday that the 2022 tournament had a projected live viewership of 365 million people across all matches and 50 million for the England-Germany final (including Chloe Kelly’s extra-time winner, seen above), well ahead of the 178 million and 15 million figures they cited for the tournament and the final in its last incarnation in 2017.
💥 Record-breaking 💥
Over 3️⃣6️⃣5️⃣ million people watched #WEURO2022 last month!
Check out @WEURO2022 key figures: ⤵️
— UEFA (@UEFA) August 31, 2022
Here are more details from that UEFA release:
Viewing figures on television and online reached unprecedented heights.
• The tournament became the most watched Women’s EURO ever, with a projected global cumulative live viewership of 365 million across TV, out-of-home viewing and streaming
• This means there were more than double the number of live viewers compared to the 2017 edition (178 million) and 214% more live viewers than in 2013 (116 million)
• The final between England and Germany is projected to have attained a cumulative live viewership of 50 million worldwide, over three times more than for the 2017 final, when 15 million viewers tuned in
• In both the UK and Germany, the final had the largest Women’s EURO audiences ever and the largest audiences since UEFA EURO 2020
With so many different countries (and thus, different viewership methodologies) involved, the numbers here come with some questions. But even with that, it’s certainly notable how much they increased over similarly-tracked numbers by UEFA the last time around. The 2022 tournament undoubtedly drew significantly higher viewership, both overall and for the final, than the 2017 edition. And that speaks to the ongoing rise of women’s soccer, and women’s sports in general.
[UEFA.com]
