Australia's FIFA 2023 Women's World Cup round of 16 match against Denmark set a domestic viewership record for commercial broadcaster Seven Network.
The home side's victory over Denmark on August 7, which saw the team progress into the quarter-finals, was the highest-rated TV program of 2023 so far, reaching 6.54 million people on linear channel Seven and streaming service 7plus, with an average audience during the game of 3.56 million.
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The match was the number one broadcast program nationally, with the game’s average audience number including a national broadcast audience of 3.18 million viewers on Seven and another 384,000 viewers on 7plus – a record for an individual event on 7plus.
The match was viewed on Seven by more people than 2022’s Australian rules AFL and rugby's NRL grand finals, as well as all of this year’s State of Origin matches in rugby league.
Australia’s Women’s team will now play France in the next round in Brisbane on August 12, which will also be broadcast live and free on Seven, as are all Australian Women’s games at the tournament.
Earlier in the tournament an average of 2.42 million domestic viewers tuned in to watch Australia’s crucial victory against Canada, becoming the most-viewed match of the tournament so far at the time for Seven Network.
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By GlobalDataMeanwhile, US broadcasting giant Fox’s audience dropped 21% For the US women’s team’s (USWNT) World Cup exit.
Fox’s coverage of the USWNT’s Round of 16 loss to Sweden averaged 2.52 million viewers on August 6, down 21% from the 3,196,000 average for their telecast of the USWNT’s Round of 16 victory over Spain in 2019.
The USWNT’s performances in the group stage plus the time of the match were blamed, with Fox’s telecast of Sweden’s penalty victory over the US beginning at 5 am Eastern Time (ET), with the equivalent match last tournament airing at 11:39 am ET.
Match viewership peaked at 4,072,000 viewers between 7:30 and 7:45 am ET.
Fox said that the four USA matches are projected to average 3.8 million, up 2% from 2019's 3.726 million viewers for comparable four matches despite two overnight and early morning matches.
If the USWNT had won their group as they were expected to, their matches would have aired in ratings-friendly prime-time windows in the US.
The clash between defending champions the US and the Netherlands became the most-watched group-stage match in US history after delivering a record 6.43 million viewers for rightsholder Fox, the US national network.
World governing body FIFA also announced a new record for ticket sales for the WWC after breaking the 1.5 million target set in France four years ago to become the most attended edition in the tournament’s history.
The majority of the ticket sales have been made in Australia, where over 1.1 million tickets have been bought, boosted by the popularity of the Matildas national team and women’s soccer more broadly.
