Shortly before the World Cup, the soccer women are without a TV station
Alexandra Popp inspired the national team at the European Championships
What: pa/ZUMAPRESS.com/Jonathan Moscrop
In 2022, the German soccer players delivered the ratings hit on television with their European Championship final. Nevertheless, less than 100 days before the World Cup, it is still not certain whether the tournament will be broadcast at all in this country.
K100 days before the start of the women’s soccer World Cup in Australia and New Zealand it is still unclear whether the tournament will be broadcast on German television. The bidding process for the broadcasting rights “has so far been unsuccessful, as there have been no offers that recognize the true value of the largest women’s football tournament in the world,” said Fifa when asked.
ARD and ZDF are currently not commenting on the negotiation poker with the world football association, nor are the RTL Group and ProSiebenSat.1. or the pay providers Sky and DAZN, which have recently been particularly active in women’s sports. At the tournament from July 20th to August 20th, the German runners-up at the European Championships, headed by national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, will meet Morocco, Colombia and South Korea in the preliminary round.
Because of the time difference, the transmissions in Germany are in the early morning. The tournament is not particularly attractive for private broadcasters due to the lower number of viewers at this time of the day.
“Appropriate assessment of the potential of the Women’s World Cup”
“On the part of the DFB, we would like to see a large reach and visibility – both for the tournament as a whole, but above all for the games of our women’s national team in the interests of our fans and partners, in order to further promote the great development of women’s football in recent months,” says Holger Blask, Head of Marketing at the German Football Association (DFB). “We therefore assume that Fifa and the interested TV broadcasters will also assess the economic potential of the Women’s World Cup appropriately and in line with the market and find good solutions.”
Semi-final celebrations: Alexandra Popp celebrates her goal against France with her teammates. The German women won 2:1
Quelle: pa/ZUMAPRESS.com/Paul Terry
Last year’s European Championship in England was a ratings hit in Germany: The live broadcast of the final between Germany and England (1:2) at Wembley Stadium was even the most-watched television program of the entire year with 17.952 million viewers. The market share was 64.5 percent. A total of three games by the footballers ended up in the top ten of the 2022 TV rankings.
The ratings for the men’s World Cup in Qatar were disappointing: ARD and ZDF experienced a drop of around 40 percent in reach. In 2018, the average value per live broadcast was around 10.16 million, now it was just under 6.33 million.
