USWNT TV ratings down 10% from 2021

As the year comes to an end, the news for the TV ratings for the USMNT was quite good. This was not a surprise as they made their return to the World Cup. Playing four games at the World Cup tends to boost the viewership.

Unfortunately for the USWNT, the news was not as good on the TV ratings front. Those numbers were down 10% when compared to last year. However, there are, several explanations for it. First, a look at the numbers.

USWNT TV ratings in 2022

Takeaways

Over the course of 13 games in 2022, the USWNT averaged 362,692 viewers per game. That is a 10% drop from 401,913 viewers per game in 2021. It is also 92% lower than 4,467,167 the MNT averaged this year. But it is up 20% from the same year in the previous cycle (2018) when they drew 302,421 viewers per game over the course of 19 games. And it figures to rise substantially next year during the Women’s World Cup.

Unavailable numbers

There may be 13 games with viewership numbers but the USWNT actually played 18 games in 2022. The missing 5 games were the Women’s World Cup Qualifying Tournament. While the two previous editions of the tournament were held in the US, this one was played in Mexico. As a result the games were shown on CBS Sports Network. Because that’s a channel that isn’t tracked by Nielsen, no viewership figures are available for those games.

Lack of Spanish-language numbers

One of the most underappreciated assets for US national team viewing is Spanish-language TV. With so many people here in the US from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Argentina, Cuba, and so on it seems foolish not to count them in the viewing audience.

While Spanish-language viewing numbers may be readily available for the MNT, they seem to be in short supply for the WNT. In fact, not a single WNT game in 2022 has an available Spanish language viewership number. This comes after there were only three such numbers available in both 2020 and 2021.

Overall

While the WNT certainly did not have the same eye-popping number the MNT enjoyed in 2022, there were positive signs. Chief among them was better numbers than during the same year of the previous cycle. And, with the Women’s World Cup next year, there figures to be bump in the ratings.

PHOTO: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire