Matildas World Cup TV ratings awake a ‘sleeping giant
Australia’s do-or-die clash with Canada should have fans on the edge of their seats, as ratings for the women’s World Cup explode.
When Australia’s national women’s soccer team, the Matildas, beat Ireland 1-0 in their opening game of the FIFA World Cup, TV executives were focused on more than the scoreline.
From the perspective of the World Cup’s free-to-air broadcaster Seven and equally interested rivals who missed out on the rights, it was all about the ratings – as a barometer of where women’s team sport stood in the Australian public consciousness.
But when the viewership figures lobbed about 9am the morning after, even Seven was shocked – on the upside.
The telecast averaged 1.91 million viewers nationally across Seven and its streaming service platform, 7plus, making the game’s ratings the highest for a women’s team sport telecast outside the Olympics.
The Matildas – without their star captain and striker Sam Kerr for the start of the tournament – may have lost their second game, against Nigeria, but the audience numbers remained high. And with the team’s World Cup prospects coming down to a do-or-die clash against Olympic champion Canada on Monday night, Seven expects new records when the ratings arrive on Tuesday morning.
Veteran media analyst Steve Allen, director of strategy and research at Pearman Media, was stunned by the size of the World Cup audiences, observing the event shaped as a watershed moment for women’s team sport.
“The Ireland game awakened a sleeping giant,” he said. “I didn’t think they’d get near that number. That will now be in the top five audiences of the year. It may not have quite reached NRL State of Origin numbers, but it’s not far behind. The audiences are awakening, and the TV executives will also awaken.”
There was envy among rival networks about Seven’s ratings, particularly after it picked up its free-to-air rights to 15 World Cup games from Optus – the event’s domestic broadcasting partner – including all the Matildas’ pool games, under a sublicensing deal reportedly costing the network very little.
The deal was struck last October, just a month after the Optus data breach triggered a massive corporate crisis for the telecommunications group.
Allen wryly notes: “Hats off to (Seven chief executive) James Warburton, and his crew, what a steal they’ve got on the Women’s World Cup.”
Seven’s head of sport, Lewis Martin, conceded audience numbers were higher than expected.
“The huge ticket sales and TV ratings for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 clearly show how many people are interested in … women’s sport,” he said.
“The (World Cup) is going to be a massive boost for women’s sport, in terms of people watching it and – just as importantly – getting involved.”
But Nine and Foxtel, in particular, have also been making significant moves to cash in on the growing interest in women’s team sports. Simon Fordham, head of partnerships and strategy for Nine’s Wide World of Sports, says the network recognises “women’s team sport is in a purple patch”. In the past month alone, Nine has broadcast the first two rounds of the NRLW, the women’s rugby league premiership; the two-match women’s rugby league State of Origin series; the Women’s Ashes from England; and last week’s dominant performance by the Australian women’s swim team at the World Swimming Championships.
Nine ran both women’s State of Origin matches on its main channel in Sydney and Brisbane, thrashing proven prime-time performers such as MasterChef Australia in the two cities each time.
Foxtel is expanding its coverage of women’s rugby league in 2023, with the Fox League channel’s launch of a Thursday night magazine show dedicated to this year’s women’s NRLW premiership, hosted by Lara Pitt.
Additionally, Fox League and Kayo will show all NRLW games live this year. On Friday, Foxtel also started screening the Netball World Cup from South Africa, another global event Australia is considered a genuine prospect of winning.
The coverage comes after a domestic Super Netball competition that broke ratings records for Foxtel and Kayo.
“It’s fantastic to see the long-term investments we have made in women’s sport really culminating,” says Rebecca McCloy, Foxtel’s commercial sports chief. “It’s always been part of our strategy and it’s good to see others elevating women’s sports in the same way we always have.”
Research by data group Gemba for Foxtel in June claimed local women’s sport viewing was up 18 per cent for the year to June. That momentum is set to continue. All but two games of Nine’s expanded NRLW season will screen on its main channel in Sydney and Brisbane, Fordham notes.
“Women’s sport is in a really exciting growth period,” he said.
“We’re noticing a huge improvement in quality, particularly in rugby league.
“It’s attracting a new audience of women 18 plus, traditionally a difficult market to reach, and that could help us grow the overall NRL audience as well.”
More Coverage
‘This case was never about me’: Lattouf defiant after ABC court case
Antoinette Lattouf said her unlawful termination suit against the ABC had been ‘the most difficult period of my life’ after the case wrapped up in the federal court | WATCH
Lattouf treated differently to ABC’s Tingle, Karvelas: lawyer
Antoinette Lattouf’s lawyers argue her ‘unprecedented’ dismissal was based on a ‘stereotyped assumption’ not applied to other ABC presenters like Laura Tingle and Patricia Karvelas.