2023 Women’s World Cup on track to smash records
The 2023 Women’s World Cup, currently being held in Australia and New Zealand is on course to become both the most viewed and well attended women’s tournament ever, according to data released by FIFA and Euromonitor International.
TV Hit
Data released by Euromonitor International before the tournament kicked off in New Zealand on the 20th of July, projected total viewing figures to surpass the two billion mark for the first time.
Since such data started being recorded during the 2015 World Cup, viewing figures have consistently increased across tournaments, including a near doubling of the 1.12 billion total viewers from France 2019.
A two billion total views prediction is proving likely to come true so far, with many nations posting record breaking viewing figures for games throughout the tournament.
Australia have beaten previous viewing records for a women’s match multiple times throughout the competition. Most recently, a peak audience of 7.2 million people tuned into the 7 network to watch the Matildas defeat France on penalties to reach the semi-finals.
Australia’s victory against France was not only their most watched women’s football match, but also the countries most watched programme in over two decades. This record was likely broken again during the Matildas semi-final clash against England, with figures yet to be released.
China produced the tournaments largest audience to date with a staggering 53.9 million viewers tuning in to watch their side lose 6-1 to England, with the overall match viewing toppling 58 million.
Brazil, Colombia, New Zealand, the USA and many others also broke national viewing figures for group stage matches.
The early exits of China and the USA may impact some of the early viewing figure predictions, however the tournament is still likely to break many records.
Attendance Boost
The 2023 Women’s World Cup is also on track to break the previous total attendance record set at Canada in 2015. Canada sold a total of 1.35 million tickets across the tournament with Australia and New Zealand set to smash that amount, with a projected 1.98 million tickets sold.
FIFA announced that after the group stage over 1.75 million had been sold which comfortably beat the pre-tournament target of 1.3 million, showcasing how much the women’s game has captivated people.
Australia has particularly caught World Cup fever, with an average 93% capacity filled across matches in the country.
Canada 2015 did contest 12 less matches than this year’s 64 game tournament, which explains some of the vast difference in ticket totals. However, the 2023 edition is still expected to eclipse Canada’s average attendance of 26,000, with a projected 31,000 average attendance across Australia and New Zealand.
This projected average will be the highest at a tournament since the 2007 World Cup held in China, whilst also representing a 42% increase from the previous tournament held in France during 2019.
Engagement Records
This Women’s World Cup has also smashed the social media numbers of previous editions . FIFA announced that the digital traffic for the 2023 tournament surpassed the total amount for France 2019 within 2 weeks.
The official Women’s World Cup TikTok page doubled its following to two million followers over the course of the group stage, whilst all official FIFA channels saw an average of 2.4 million users engage with content daily.
Once FIFA release the social media data for the whole tournament it is likely many more records will have been broken, further showcasing the success of this years Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
The more the records tumble, the greater the promise is for the long term future is for the women’s game.
