Despite the time difference between Australia/New Zealand and major markets such as the United States and Europe playing to the disadvantage of the 2023 FIFA Women's World in terms of TV viewership, the month-long tournament was a huge success both in terms of at-home audience and stadium attendance.
According to FIFA, nearly two million people attended the 64 matches played down under, blowing past the previous record of 1.35 million matchday fans at the 2015 World Cup in Canada. While it needs to be noted that it was the first Women's World Cup played with 32 teams instead of 24 at the previous two tournaments and 16 before that, it was also only the third Women's World Cup to surpass 30,000 in average stadium attendance. As our chart shows, the tournaments played in the U.S. in 1999 and in China in 2007 both drew more than 37,000 fans per game, but since they had half the number of games compared to the 2023 competition, they're far off in terms of total attendance.
"In the host countries, we had almost two million spectators in the stadiums - full houses everywhere - and two billion watching all over the world,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in a statement. “It's a great sport, it's entertaining and people love it." Prior to the final, Infantino had angered players and fans of the women's game alike, when he said that women should "pick the right battles" in their fight for equality. “You have the power to convince us, men, what we have to do and what we don’t have to do. You do it, just do it,” Infantino had said, not only suggesting that it was women's responsibility to convince men of their worthiness of equal treatment, but also belittling many players' efforts to promote and advance the women's game in the face of adversity.
