One of the largest Women’s World Cup audiences on record tuned in for the USWNT-France quarterfinal.
Friday’s United States-France FIFA Women’s World Cup quarterfinal earned 6.12 million viewers on FOX, per Nielsen fast-nationals — up 7% from the USWNT quarterfinal against China in 2015, which aired in primetime (5.74M), and up 57% from the team’s quarterfinal against Brazil in 2011, which aired on a Sunday morning on ESPN (3.89M).
The U.S. win delivered the largest audience on record for a Women’s World Cup quarterfinal, topping the previous high set by the 2015 match.
Regardless of round, it ranks as the fifth-most watched Women’s World Cup match ever on a single-network. The 2015 final holds the top spot (25.4M), followed by the 1999 final (17.98M), 2011 final (13.46M) and the 2015 U.S.-Germany semifinal (8.43M). Fox Sports has aired nine of the top eleven.
Including streaming, the match had 6.34 million.
Of the five USWNT matches in this year’s World Cup, it was just the second to increase over 2015. Keep in mind that all five U.S. matches this year have aired in the afternoon, with four of those five taking place during the workday. By comparison, every U.S. match in 2015 aired in primetime.
Figures for Thursday’s Norway-England quarterfinal were not immediately available.
Largest Women’s World Cup audiences on record
[Numbers from Fox Sports]
