This time next week, Women’s Euro 2025 will be underway, with the second day of matches taking place. (The second day is far more enticing than the first, featuring as it does Belgium vs Italy and Spain vs Portugal.) The tournament is another significant juncture for women’s football in the media.
Since that historic moment in 2022, when Chloe Kelly and her sports bra secured the first major tournament win for an England senior side since 1966, women’s football in the UK has grown hugely. There’s now coverage of the Women’s Super League (WSL) across Sky and the BBC. Alongside that are endless podcasts and social media channels.
A report released yesterday by the Women’s Sport Trust revealed that there had been a 35% decrease in average TV audience per game season-on-season. The number of live WSL matches shown on the key channels – BBC One and Sky Sports Main Event and Premier League – dropped. There was a 10% decline in fans going to games, too.
Has the gloss from that Lionesses win and their subsequent run to the World Cup worn off? Has the lack of competitiveness in the league finally caught up with it? Maybe. But the story is not quite so simple.
Women’s Euro 2025 And Digital Platforms
On digital platforms, the WSL is huge. Indeed, the report found it attracted the 2nd highest number of YouTube views for a women’s sport in its first year. It is also leading on TikTok. Just as significant, a game from the Championship, the second tier of the game in England, was shown on Sky Sports for the first time as the season reached a nail-biting climax.
The way “fandom” works now, it’s become quite fashionable to post about women’s football and other women’s sports on social media platforms. We see this in rugby, for example. The Women’s Sport Trust found that USA star Ilona Maher’s signing by Bristol Bears triggered Instagram engagement to increase more than ninefold, bringing it to 2.5 million. Brodacasters benefited too, with audiences going up to +281% when Maher was in a matchday squad.
The fashionable social media vibe can have a downside, too. I remember going to one game, the Women’s FA Cup semi-final, no less, and the two women behind me were clearly more interested in filming “content” than actually watching what was a historic occasion for both Spurs and Leicester City.
Tammy Parlour, CEO of the Women’s Sport Trust, said:
The decline in overall broadcast viewership is a reminder of the fierce competition for audience attention. We must ensure that investment in production and distribution keeps pace with fan demand and the quality of the sport on offer… The growing digital interest shows there’s strong casual fandom; the opportunity now is to translate that into regular, domestic viewing habits, especially off the back of the interest that this summer’s major events will generate. To unlock long-term value, we need consistent, quality coverage – supported by sustained investment across the whole ecosystem.
Euro 2025 is a huge opportunity to remind people about the quality and excitement women’s football provides. They might even put their phones down and watch the games.
About the Author
1 thought on “Women’s Euro 2025 Can Help Decline in Broadcast Viewers”