Glory-chasing England prove TV ratings hit
ENGLANd’S women’s football team are making history at home as well as in Holland after smashing television records with their Euro 2017 quarter-final triumph over France.
Sunday night’s win over the world’s third best team was watched by 3.3million people at its peak on Channel 4, and the programme averaged 2m viewers — almost twice the number of a typical Premier League game on satellite channels Sky Sports and BT Sport.
The match had the biggest ever peak TV audience for women’s football. Now TV bosses expect Thursday’s semi-final against hosts Holland and a potential final with denmark or Austria to exceed even that figure.
BBC2 dragged in a peak of 3.2m viewers for England versus France at the World Cup in 2015 but support for Mark Sampson’s recordbreakers has swelled since.
Channel 4, who are not regular football broadcasters, are understood to be delighted with the uptake in their coverage.
England’s first two group stage games against Scotland and Spain peaked at 2m viewers before a slight dip for the win over Portugal with qualification all but assured.
Organisers UEFA say TV viewing figures across the continent for the Women’s European Championship are up by 34 per cent. The Lionesses are now favourites to reach Sunday’s final and the FA have ensured the Community Shield meeting between Chelsea and Arsenal will not clash with the 4pm finale in Holland by setting a 2pm kickoff time at Wembley.
Although there have been empty seats at all of England’s games so far, Thursday’s clash with the tournament hosts is a sell-out at Enschede’s 30,000capacity de Grolsch Veste.
The FA have released a select batch of tickets for fans to make a last-minute trip to Holland to join the hundreds who have cheered on England’s women so far.
But they are likely to be overwhelmed by Holland’s Orange Army as the host nation gets behind its team.
Siobhan Chamberlain, who is in line to replace the injured Karen Bardsley in goal on Thursday night, says such a step-up in support for their opponents will not faze the Lionesses.
‘We’ve got a different challenge against Holland,’ the Liverpool stopper said yesterday. ‘ They’ll have all their supporters behind them, that will give them an extra buzz, and the atmosphere will be fantastic.
‘But in the World Cup quarter-final we were playing in front of 50,000 Canadian fans in Canada and we coped with that, so we’ll go out there on Thursday feeling confident that we can get the win.’
Bardsley will have further tests today on the thigh injury that forced her off late in the game against France and is in a race against time to be fit for the semi-final.
England are already without key midfielder Jill Scott, whose second booking of the tournament brought her a one-game ban.
Even with her suspension, the buzz around England right now is infectious for one of their longest serving players.
‘i’m so happy that we won yesterday that i think those emotions are overriding the personal disappointment,’ Scott said.