A RECORD UK audience for a women’s football game tuned into England’s World Cup opener with Scotland on the BBC yesterday afternoon.
Sunday’s match attracted a peak audience of 6.1 million people and a 37.8% audience share, making it the most-watched women’s football match in the history of British television.
The previous record was held by England’s Euro 2017 semi-final against the Netherlands, which was watched by 4 million people.
As a point of comparison, the BBC’s Dan Roan reports that the England men’s Nations League victory over Switzerland yesterday afternoon attracted a peak audience of 1.23 million, about a fifth of those who watched the World Cup clash. (This, however, carries the caveat of the men’s game being behind a Sky Sports paywall.)
England won the game 2-1, through first-half goals from Ellen White and Nikita Parris. Claire Emslie replied with a second-half goal for Scotland, but it wasn’t enough to deny Phil Neville’s team an opening-day victory in Group D.
England face Argentina in their next game on 14 June, hours after Scotland bid to rescue their tournament against Japan.
With the BBC covering the tournament extensively for UK viewers, RTÉ and TG4 are bringing live match coverage to an Irish audience.
