England’s final group stage match win against Wales during soccer’s UEFA Women’s European Championship (Euros) secured more than double the UK audience of Premier League club Chelsea’s victory at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, despite both events airing live and free-to-air at the same time.
The Lionesses’ 6-1 group-stage win at the Women’s Euros on July 13 (Sunday), aired by UK commercial broadcaster ITV, drew an average of 4.2 million viewers, peaking at 4.6 million, across all devices, including linear channels ITV1, streaming service ITVX, and STV, ITV’s Scottish affiliate. Specifically, its coverage on linear channel ITV1 channel, averaged 2.9 million and peaked at 4.4 million.
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Meanwhile, Chelsea’s 3-0 victory over France’s Paris Saint-Germain in FIFA’s Club World Cup final in the US was only watched by 1.1 million on UK FTA broadcaster Channel 5, with a peak audience of 2.3 million during the match.
Both ITV and the UK's public-service broadcaster, the BBC, hold UK rights to the women's soccer tournament and have split the group stage matches between themselves.
The event has now progressed to the knockout stages, with the BBC set to show three of the four quarterfinal matches, starting with today’s clash between Norway and Italy before covering Sweden versus England tomorrow (July 17) and Spain versus Switzerland (July 18).
ITV will air the last quarterfinal match between France and Germany on July 19, and the networks will share one semifinal each, with ITV getting first pick.
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By GlobalDataThe final, taking place on July 27, will be aired by both broadcasters, meanwhile.
In terms of UK viewers for the Club World Cup final, meanwhile, it is worth noting that Channel 5’s viewership figures for that fixture do not include UK viewers who streamed the game for free via DAZN’s service. Global sports streaming service DAZN – the worldwide CWC rightsholder – has not shared its viewership figures yet.
Paramount-owned Channel 5 snapped up a rights package to air 23 of the 63 fixtures during the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup through a sublicensing deal with DAZN earlier this year.
Specifically, Channel 5 aired 15 group-stage games, four round-of-16 clashes, two quarter-finals, one of the semi-finals, and then the final itself, drawing over 14 million UK viewers throughout the channel’s coverage.
English-language coverage of the match in the US by TNT Sports’ TBS channel, meanwhile, drew an average of 1.3 million viewers, while Spanish-language coverage on Univision and TUDN averaged 1.43 million.
The UK viewership figures of the Women’s Euros versus the Club World Cup come in contrast to results in France, where the clash between Chelsea and domestic league winners Paris Saint-Germain drew more than France’s match against the Netherlands (which France won) in the Women’s Euros.
PSG’s loss was watched by a domestic audience of 4.8 million on French commercial broadcaster TF1, representing a 30.1% audience share, while the Women’s Euro game attracted under 2.3 million viewers.
The France versus Netherlands match was originally scheduled for TF1, then the TMC TV channel, before finally being shown on public-service broadcaster France 2.
