England Women’s team shattered another TV record as 11.7 million people tuned in to watch them narrowly lose to the United States in their blockbuster semi-final clash.
Phil Neville’s side battled hard against the reigning champions but ultimately fell just short as goals from Christen Press and Alex Morgan secured a 2-1 win for the USA and a place in the World Cup final.
As crushing as the defeat was, the Lionesses may be able to take a crumb of comfort from the fact Tuesday night’s match was the UK’s most-watched women’s football game of all time and the most-watched TV programme of the year.
England Women broke the TV record as 11.7 million tuned in to watch semi-final defeat
Almost one million more tuned in to watch England against USA than the next most-watched TV programme this year Line of Duty, which peaked at 10.9m.
There were also 400,000 more viewers for Tuesday night’s semi defeat than there were for the Champions League final on BT Sport last month. Of the 11.3m who watched Liverpool defeat Tottenham, 6.5m were on TV and 4.8m were on digital streams. BBC have not yet released their digital figures for the Women’s World Cup.
The incredible TV ratings from England vs USA saw a five-minute peak audience of 11.73m viewers and 51 per cent share at 9.45pm on BBC One. The average audience was 8.819m and a 43 per cent share.
Ellen White scored her sixth goal of the tournament to equalise for England in the first half
United States striker Alex Morgan’s first-half header proved to be the winner as they won 2-1
England striker Ellen White had cancelled out Press’ early opener with her sixth goal of the tournament in the first half before Morgan put the Americans back in front with a well-placed header.
White thought she had equalised again after the break but her goal was ruled out by VAR for offside.
Steph Houghton had a glorious opportunity late on when VAR adjudged White had been fouled in the area but the England captain spurned it by missing from the spot.
Neville’s side have broken the TV record for women’s football four times during their run to the World Cup semi-final with 6.1m people watching their group stage win over Scotland, 6.9m tuning in for 3-0 win against Cameroon and their quarter-final win over Norway drawing a peak audience of 7.6m viewers.
The figures, based on people watching for five minutes or more, have shown a clear indication that the women’s game is on a steep incline in the UK.
The previous TV record before this tournament in France stood at 4m viewers, who watched England’s Euro 2017 semi-final against Holland.
