You’re making an apples to oranges comparison - the pinnacle event of an international sport is orders of magnitude bigger than the pinnacle event of a domestic sport that has only recently started to invest in a women’s competition.
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There is a big difference because the women’s state of origin didn’t capture the imagination of the nation the way the Matilda’s have
It is unbelievable that people still won’t concede how great this is for soccer
Bring on Wednesday!!
Let’s take a moment to pause and realise that this is a national team, everyone in the country is getting behind them, which is great to see.
Will this mean soccer in this country changes, wait until the end of A-league season before we judge that.
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Australia celebrates with the Matildas
Biggest TV sport program in a decade, biggest ever streaming event
The Matildas cemented their standing as national heroes and media superstars yesterday, defeating France in the Quarter Final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ and delivering the highest rating TV sport program of the past decade.
The Matildas’ thrilling victory over France at Brisbane Stadium in a 7-6 penalty shootout reached more than 7.2 million people (preliminary data) on Seven and 7plus, with an estimated average audience during the game of 4.17 million. The estimated average includes the game’s overtime, which was not captured in the preliminary OzTAM broadcast audience numbers for the game*.
The Matildas v France game’s adjusted average audience of 4.17 million included a national broadcast audience of 3.69 million viewers on Seven (2.62 million in the capital cities) plus 472,000 viewers on 7plus. It is the #1 TV program of the year.
The 472,000 viewers on 7plus makes the Matildas v France game the biggest streaming event ever seen in Australia.
(OzTAM data does not take into account out-of-home viewing at clubs, pubs, sporting venues and so on.)
According to the preliminary, non-adjusted OzTAM data, the game peaked at 4.43 million viewers on broadcast and dominated its broadcast timeslot, scoring an 81.2% commercial audience share in total people, 85% in 25 to 54s and 91.2% in 16 to 39s.
So far, Seven’s coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ has reached 11.9 million broadcast viewers plus another 2.3 million on 7plus. More than 269 million minutes of content has been watched on 7plus to date.
Seven’s Managing Director Melbourne and Network Head of Sport, Lewis Martin, said: “Australia partied yesterday as the Matildas did us proud. The nation gathered around the screens of Seven to cheer on our latest sporting heroes, in an amazing, shared experience that only Seven can deliver.
“The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ has brought Australia together in a way we haven’t seen for years. We can’t wait for Wednesday. Go Matildas!”
The Matildas will now take on England in the Semi Final, to be played at Stadium Australia in Sydney this Wednesday, 16 August, with coverage on Seven and 7plus starting at 7.00pm AEST.
The official OzTAM broadcast audience numbers released this morning are preliminary data and do not take into account the fact the game ran into overtime. The adjusted audience numbers will be released on Tuesday.
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Or you could just have a look at the increase in the number of kids now playing the sport
Doesn’t State of Origin game two on 9Now hold the current record with 563,000?
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The 57% doesnt include the first half of the match in Eastern States, and for Perth’s viewing. So that in itself is amazing.
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People aren’t saying this isn’t great for soccer. We are saying that this doesn’t translate to A-League higher ratings or friendly matches ratings. Thats your apple to oranges comparison right there.
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It would be great if this did happen, but similar was said when the Socceroos attracted large audiences in the World Cup - realistically it converted to nothing of substance.
Football has always had strong junior participation
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Yes, Game one of this year’s SOO had an official live BVOD audience of 536,000.
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That’s what I was thinking, pretty sure that Lleyton Hewitt figure is five cities only, IIRC a further 1.6m+ watched in regional (1.5m+ agg. + 130k Tas no WA yet) for about 5.7m national, a figure also reported by SMH last year after Barty when they did comparisons.
Same for (e.g.) 2008 Beiijing, sorry Bort 2010 MC Winner, 2013 MKR Winner, 2012 AFL GF, early 2010s SOO/NRLs. And VOZ had Barty’s Presentations last year at over 4.2 or 4.3m IIRC.
Can’t see the likes of 5.7m and certainly not 8m for ABNielsen Sydney 2000 being gotten close to, even if Matildas win the final, not in this 2023 climate.
I’m all for records, but a ratings purist and inaccuracies are painful for us MS folk. Hopefully somebody will pick up and that article and other media will be corrected, but they’re already being re-posted online and doing the rounds on socials, so fat chance. And made worse by the over-run and coding mess, Seven saying won’t know officially until Tuesday 
Happy to look at that, along side the percentage of those kids that turn 15 and change from soccer to AFL/NRL/Cricket or another sport.
There are a number of educational studies that show that kids participation in soccer is high due to the limited skills one has to have to play the game at a basic level, limited body contact which means boys and girls can play along side each other, compared to other sports.
Even in the 90’s soccer was player in primary schools at lunch, cause it was east for all to play, but doesn’t mean it generates a new generation of fans or players.
For us on a media site, that has ratings data to look at, it’s clear from pervious World Cups, that the ratings will be high, cause Aussies love watching Aussies play.
This World Cup has shown it perfectly, when it wasn’t a Aussie game, it didn’t rate that well.
Aussies could be in the Final of Marbles, if it is shown at prime time, Australia will watch, doesn’t mean we all want to play Marbles tomorrow.
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I reckon this is a fad and once the Matildas either win or lose the world cup everyone will move onto their respective codes they follow.
But this is what Australia does they get behind their national team on big international sporting events. Rugby Union doesn’t rate in Australia but during the world cup everyone will get onboard with them. Same goes for the Matildas and Socceroos. The A-league doesn’t rate very well here compared to NRL/AFL but during world cups everyone is supporting them.
There is place for every sport in Australia but apart from the big two NRL/AFL everything else doesn’t rate very highly at all except during international tournaments.
IMO the Matildas fad will die out until the next FIFA world cup comes around.
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Wonder if the VOZ release this afternoon will have the adjusted data, I’d imagine so (maybe we won’t have to wait until Tuesday after all), including an unprecedented zero for Seven News in Melbourne.
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It’s not uncommon for these sports to get a bump in either participation or viewership, but ultimately it’s a fad most of the people who either decide to play or to watch end up departing. Its hard for any sport (let alone Football) to capitalise on these bumps - partly because they’re unprepared and they are often unpredictable.
One of the issues that Football faces is that the quality of the local professional product is far from what we see when our national teams do well (although it’s improving and the gap is closing). While the Matildas have all come up through the W-League and the ALW, there is a good reason why they’ve all left Australia to play overseas.
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Village /Event and Hoyts need to sort rights with FIFA and see if they can get it on vmax and other screens for the night
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VOZ numbers are not usually adjusted. Melbourne news won’t record a 0 - it will be blank.
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Not unprecedented
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Always had strong junior participation and now it has even more
Yeah, you’re right. This is just a fad which will have no long term benefit 
Once the shop window goes back to being WSL games in the middle of the night and A-League W games on a channel/service no one watches, everyone will settle back into their habits.
This feels more like an Olympics style event to me, rather than the start of a new era in sport.
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