Euro 2022 final draws huge 17.4m peak TV audience | OneFootball

A record 17.4m watched the Euro 2022 final between England and Germany on BBC One.

That peak audience is a huge rise on the previous TV record for women’s football of 11.7m, set in 2019 when the Lionesses faced the United States in the World Cup semi-final.

The 17.4m figure also doesn’t even include the extra 5.9m online BBC streams or people who watched the game in public spaces such as pubs, bars and fan parks. As well as the UK's most watched women's football game of all time, it is the UK's most watched television event this year.

Overall, it highlights just how much the nation was invested in the Lionesses and their journey.

England attracted sell out crowds at all of their games, playing at Old Trafford, the Amex Stadium, St. Mary’s, Bramall Lane and Wembley, but TV viewing figures grew as the tournament progressed.

The opening game against Austria saw a 3.7m peak TV audience, with that rising slightly to 4.1m for the next match against Norway. There was a slight fall for the Northern Ireland game, with England having already qualified for the knockout stages and therefore less at stake.

The quarter-final against Spain drew a peak TV audience of 7.6m, while 9.3m tuned in at home for the semi-final against Sweden. But with England then in a first women’s final since 2009 and in with a chance of delivering the country a first international trophy since 1966, that number also doubled for the final, swelling to an incredible 17.4m television viewers.