By Jonathan Easton
England’s opening match of UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 was watched by over 4 million viewers in the UK.
Host nation England kicked off the tournament with a 1-0 win against Austria at Old Trafford.
According to BBC Sport broadcast journalist Emma Sanders, the match was watched by a peak TV audience of 3.7 million with a further 750,000 streams on the broadcast platforms including BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer.
The match attracted an in-person crowd of 68,781, making it the highest-attended Women’s Euros match in history – overtaking the 2013 final in Sweden when Germany beat Norway in front of 41,301 people. England’s victory also set the record attendance for a women’s football match in the UK, and became the third-largest in-person audience for women’s football ever behind a pair of matches played by Barcelona in the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League.
The BBC will broadcast all 31 games live from Euro 2022 across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport website and app.
England, one of the favourites for the tournament, will hope that this initial wave of enthusiasm willd build on the success of the 2019 World Cup. England’s 2-1 defeat to the USA in the semi-final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 reached a peak audience of 11.7 million viewers – equivalent to 50.8 per cent of the available audience – and was the most viewed women’s football match ever on UK TV. This record would likely be broken should England make it through to the latter stages of the tournament, with the final set to take place at Wembley Stadium on July 31.
