Lionesses’ win most-watched women’s football match in UK ever

The Lionesses’ win over Germany in the UEFA Women’s Euro Final last night attracted a peak audience of 17.42 million viewers, the highest audience of any women’s football match in UK broadcast history.

This marked more than a fivefold increase from the peak audience of the Lionesses’ first match of the tournament against Austria of 3.69 million, while the semi-final against Sweden netted a peak of 9.33 million viewers.

The BBC confirmed there were 5.9 million streams of the final on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport, making a combined audience of more than 23 million.

The BBC also reported this was the most-watched programme on the BBC so far this year and according to BARB overnight figures the peak audience was reached at 7.30pm when the final whistle blew.

🎉 The most-watched women's football game on UK television EVER. The #Lionesses' Euro 2022 final victory made TV history, pulling in a peak TV audience of 17.4 million on @BBCOne. On @BBCiPlayer & @BBCSport website & app there were 5.9 million streams!
➡️ https://t.co/VojQCihLG9 https://t.co/a0jbTY6lQp

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) August 1, 2022

On average, 11 million viewers in the individuals 4+ category tuned in to BBC One to watch England vs Germany which kicked off at 5pm at Wembley last night.

The final gained the highest share of audience for the timeslot, with 65.9%, while the Commonwealth Games showing on BBC2 received 6% and an average 992,000 viewers.

An average of 17.9 million viewers also tuned in in Germany, according to German reports, which broke its own audience record for a women’s football match from 2011 when 17 million tuned in to the World Cup Quarter Final.

A combined audience of 30.9 million people tuned in to the UEFA Men’s Euros final between England and Italy last year on BBC and ITV. This was the second-highest linear audience in UK TV since BARB began reporting in 1981.