Women’s World Cup viewership continues to buck conventional wisdom.
Entering the semifinals, the FIFA Women’s World Cup has averaged 1.26 million viewers on Fox Sports — up 10% from 2015 (1.15M) and up 51% from 2011 on ESPN and ESPN2 (804K). Viewership has increased despite earlier start times for this year’s tournament, which is taking place six hours ahead of Eastern time.
As previously noted, Friday’s United States-France match led the quarterfinal round — and the whole tournament — with a 3.8 rating and 6.12 million viewers. It was the most-watched Women’s World Cup quarterfinal on record, topping the previous high set by U.S.-China in 2015, which aired in primetime.
Saturday’s Sweden-Germany match ranked second for the quarterfinals with a 1.2 and 1.87 million on FS1, up 71% in ratings and 38% in viewership from England-Canada in 2015 (0.7, 1.35M). This year’s match started at Noon ET, while the 2015 match aired in primetime.
Netherlands-Italy had a 0.7 and 1.01 million on FS1 earlier in the day, up a tick in ratings but down 5% in viewership from Australia-Japan in 2015 (0.7, 1.07M). This year’s match started at 9 AM ET, compared to a mid-afternoon start in 2015.
Rounding out the quarterfinal round, Thursday’s England-Norway match had a 1.0 and 1.50 million on FOX — down a tick in ratings and 12% in viewership from Germany-France on a Friday afternoon in 2015 (1.1, 1.71M).
The quarterfinals averaged an additional 331,000 viewers on Telemundo (including streaming), up 41% from 2015 (235K). Germany-Sweden led the way with 694,000 viewers on Telemundo, marking the second-largest audience for a non-U.S. Women’s World Cup match on Spanish-language TV.
U.S.-France had just 183,000, but that match was relegated to Universo due to Copa America coverage on Telemundo.
[Numbers from Fox Sports, Telemundo PR/Twitter 7.1; Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 7.2]
