Women’s World Cup viewership remains up double-digits even as USWNT matches decline.
Entering the quarterfinals, the FIFA Women’s World Cup is averaging 1.13 million viewers on FOX and FS1 — up 11% from 2015 (1.02M), and up 101% from 2011 (559K). The 2011 average is for the group stage only as there was no round of 16.
The tournament continues to outperform 2015 despite weaker numbers for the USWNT. Three of the four USWNT matches have declined from four years ago, with Monday’s round of 16 match against Spain posting the biggest drop. That match had 3.15 million viewers on FS1, down a third from U.S.-Colombia in 2015 (4.72M).
Even including the streaming audience on the Fox Sports app (204K, +463%) and the Spanish-language audience on NBCSN, Telemundo and the Telemundo Deportes app (740K), the match would still fall short of 2015.
Keep in mind that this year’s Women’s World Cup is taking place in Europe, while the 2015 event took place in North America. While every U.S. match in 2015 aired in primetime, all four this year have taken place in the afternoon — and three of those four have aired during the workday. Not coincidentally, those are the three matches that have declined.
The non-U.S. matches have picked up the slack. Later Monday, Sweden-Canada scored 1.58 million viewers — up 62% from Norway-England in 2015 (973K). Netherlands-Japan had 1.14 million on Tuesday, up 20% from the same matchup in ’15, which aired in a late night timeslot (944K). Italy-China had 824,000 earlier in the day.
Austin led all markets for all four matches on Monday and Tuesday, with a 3.2 for Sweden-Canada, a 2.6 for Netherlands-Japan and a 2.1 for Italy-China. As previously noted, it drew a 4.7 for U.S.-Spain.
[Numbers from Fox Sports, Fox Sports PR 6.25, Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 6.25, 6.26]
