Women's World Cup could break 1.5 million tickets sold

The 2023 Women’s World Cup could be the biggest edition of the tournament in history, with an increasing number of tickets sold. Even though the tournament kicks off in over three months, the tickets sold for the game are rapidly approaching record figures.

Right now, the ticket count for the tournament is at 650,000, according to Sky Sports. However, this does not include the last phase of ticket sales, which only just started. The previous two phases had differing time scales. Phase one was only around a week both for presale and general sales. Phase two ran from November through March for the general sale. Now, patrons to the tournament can begin purchasing tickets to the Women’s World Cup through the end of the tournament.

Demand for tickets to the 2023 Women’s World Cup is unprecedented. For example, the opening match of the tournament moved to a bigger venue. Originally, Sydney Football Stadium with a capacity of 45,500 had hosting honors. Now, Stadium Australia’s 83,500-seat stadium is hosting the opener between Australia and Ireland.

Growing tickets at the Women’s World Cup

At France 2019, the total tournament attendance was 1,131,762. However, there are some key differences between that competition and this one. For one, interest in women’s soccer continues to climb across the world. The 2019 Women’s World Cup brought in 1.12 billion viewers across the span of the competition. This more than doubled the number of viewers of the 2015 edition. In the United States, almost 16 million people watched the Women’s World Cup Final alone.

Also, the 2023 Women’s World Cup is special in the sense that there is a record number of teams. That 2019 edition only had 24 teams. This year’s tournament bumps that up to 32. Consequently, eight teams are making their Women’s World Cup debuts.

Surely, the rise in ticket requests is due in part to these new teams making their debut at the tournament. After all, the Philippines and Vietnam are making their Women’s World Cup debuts, and they are not far from the host countries of Australia and New Zealand. Therefore, those countries may be in on the market for tickets.

PHOTO: IMAGO / Xinhua