UEFA Women’s Euros nets more than 2.5 million viewers

The first match of the UEFA Women’s Euros last night attracted an average audience of 2.69 million viewers, according to overnight BARB figures.

The match between England and Austria, which kicked off at 8pm, gained a peak audience on BBC One of 3.69 million at 9.45pm and garnered the highest share of viewing for that timeslot with a 17.9% share.

It is the first of 31 matches across 25 days being shown live on the BBC, but viewing data on BBC iPlayer and other devices is not yet available.

The BBC presenting team was all-female with Gabby Logan, Reshmin Chowdhury, Eilidh Barbour and Kelly Somers presenting and ex-England players Alex Scott, Kelly Smith, Anita Asante, Rachel Brown-Finnis and Sue Smith appearing as pundits.

The match was hosted at Old Trafford and recorded 68,871 spectators, the largest attendance at a European Women’s Championship game.

The Lionesses’ previous outing was at the 2019 Fifa Women’s World Cup was in the semi-final against Sweden on 6 July 2019, which was also broadcast on BBC One and gained an average 2.73 million viewers, a peak audience of 4.06 million viewers and the largest share of audience of that timeslot with 25.6%.