Euros final smashes viewing records as 17.4 million tune in

England’s heroic Women’s Euro 2022 final victory has broken viewing records for the sport, while also becoming the most-watched TV moment of the year in the UK.

The 2-1 victory over Germany attracted a peak TV audience of 17.4 million on BBC One, making it the most-watched women’s football game on UK television of all-time. The match was streamed a further 5.9 million times across the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport website and app. 

The final smashed the previous record of 11.7 million peak viewers who watched England’s 2-1 defeat to the USA in the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 semi-final.

BBC director general, Tim Davie said: “We are incredibly proud to have championed women’s football and are thrilled we were able to bring such a special sporting moment to the public. This was the most-watched women’s football game on UK television of all-time and the most-watched programme in 2022 so far – and deservedly so. Everyone at the BBC is delighted at the win and being able to share that with the public.”

The final also set a record for in-person attendance at a Euros – men’s or women’s – as 87,192 fans packed into Wembley Stadium. Overall, 574,875 people attended the tournament for an average of 18,544 per game, breaking the previous attendance record during the group stage (the previous record of 240,055 was set in the Netherlands five years ago).