The Women’s World Cup witnessed a significant achievement by the Matildas, as their vital win against Canada broke yet another historic ratings record, with over 2 million viewers tuning in to watch a female team sports match for the first time.
Over 2.4 million Australians tuned in to witness the Women’s World Cup victory of Matildas against the Olympic champions and advance to the next round of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. The match was broadcasted on Channel Seven and its online video service 7Plus.
Interestingly, despite competing for viewership with the Australian cricket team’s historic run chase in the Ashes on Channel Nine, the Women’s World Cup match managed to attract a substantial audience. During the first session of the fifth Ashes Test, 926,000 viewers watched, while an average of 1.2 million viewers tuned in later in the evening.
The 4-0 win over the Olympic champions marks the first time a women’s sports event has averaged more than 2 million viewers on television. Total reach – anyone who watches one minute of content on television or 15 seconds online – was 4.7 million, making it Seven’s most-watched program so far in 2023.
Seven’s online video service
More than a tenth of the viewers – 260,000 – came from Seven’s online video service, 7Plus. These figures are in addition to the 27,706 people who attended the match in Melbourne and do not account for audiences from host broadcast partner, Optus Sport, which requires a subscription and does not publicly disclose ratings data.
More than 9600 also watched the match across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in dedicated sites across the cities.
Sports managing professor Hunter Fujak from Deakin University stated that the Matildas keeping Australia’s championship campaign alive would provide relief to Channel Seven.
“[A loss] wouldn’t have been super damaging for Optus because their model works off subscribers. For Seven, a ratings-driven business, it would have had a significant effect,” Dr Fujak said.
“Seven would be breathing a big sigh of relief because even for the finals now that aren’t the Matildas, the Matildas being in the finals … will have a spillover effect for the other games in the tournament because there’ll be a collective interest.”
Two goals from Hayley Raso, one from Mary Fowler, and an injury-time penalty from Steph Catley put the Matildas at the top of Group B after Nigeria’s 0-0 draw with Ireland despite the absence of skipper Sam Kerr.
The team will play in Sydney next Monday night against the second-placed team from Group D, which is likely to be Denmark or China.
