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Here’s a bonus newsletter deep-diving on just how incredible the Matildas v England audiences were on Wednesday night. We draw on historical comparisons and consider viewership from other platforms, to show records weren’t just broken, but knocked out the park.

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Mark

Sports Business Newsletter

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The Matildas have truly captured the nation, grabbing headlines with their success on and off the field. But are these audiences even more impressive than the headlines might suggest? We take a deeper look at the Matilda’s semi-final audience vs England.

Records set in a declining TV market

Overall Free-To-Air TV audiences have fallen by 40% since 2012 (based on the average Metro audience for the most-watched show each day). This is driven by changing viewing habits, with fewer people watching less FTA TV, in favour of streaming services and changing media consumption (e.g. time on social media).

The Matildas v England average TV audience of 6.2M outperformed every program in the last decade by 44%, all in spite of this 40% handicap. We’ve adjusted the top-rating show relative to the TV market that year, and normalised to 2012, to control for the background TV decline. When making this adjustment, the match was the most viewed program in the last decade by a whopping 76%. The next most-watched program, when controlling for the falling TV market, was Ash Barty’s AO win in 2022, followed by recent AFL Grand Finals (click the chart and hover to see the programs). This metric better accounts for the increasingly premium nature of live sport - where audiences are holding better than a declining TV market.

It’s important to note that these are average audiences - the average number of people watching across the broadcast. This has peaks and troughs, comings and goings, with over 11M reportedly watching at least some of the match on TV. This average was also held over a 2-hour match - all the more impressive when compared to “Winner announcements” and “Trophy Presentations” which have previously taken the #1 spot, but typically apply to a 15-minute segment, of maximum audience interest.

It is also worth noting that since 2013, the most watched show has always been a sports program, and a Women’s sporting event in the last two years. This makes it all the more questionable that the Matildas and Australian Women’s Cricket Team have had Olympics / finals moved to 7mate and GEM in recent years. These secondary channels typically have less than a fifth of the audience of Seven and Nine, denying Women’s sport the reach it needs to further realise its growth. That’s one for another time…

So just how many people were watching?

OzTam/RegTam only report at-home TV audiences. As shown above, this is now one of many ways that audiences consume content. Let’s consider the other viewing platforms, and estimate their contributions to viewership:

• Streaming on 7Plus - reported by Seven as 957K (+16% on live TV) - a streaming record, doubling 7Plus’ previous record set four days earlier in the Quarter Final.

• Streaming on Optus Sport - reported as their fourth highest rating match ever - slightly below the QF in time viewed (noting that went to extra-time and penalties). To estimate what this audience might be, we can compare relative online search for 7Plus and Optus Sport during the match. Assuming each search from 7:45pm represented someone watching the duration of the program, Optus Sport had 23% of the viewership from Seven Streaming, or an additional 216K (+4% on live TV).

• Attendees at Stadium Australia (+75,784, + 1.2% on TV). In-venue viewership is often overlooked - despite Australia having the highest per capita attendances in the world. (Take the AFL, where 7M season attendees represents a significant 7% on top of TV viewership - much higher than other global leagues with comparable attendances, but significantly larger TV markets)

• Viewership out-of-home - 24K at AAMI Park, other stadia, pubs, viewing sites, fan fest sites, aeroplanes... Much harder to quantify, especially in a manner consistent with TV average audience (watching from whistle to whistle). A previous Analyst Economy Survey after the AFL Grand Final observed an incremental 17% of respondents watched on TV at a public venue. In the absence of primary research for this match specifically, we’ll apply this estimate here, adding 1.2M. Again, it’s important to note that this out-of-home viewership is quite unique to sport. People aren’t booking tables at the local pub to see The Voice Winner announced. This needs to be accounted for when comparing sports audiences to other programs.

That brings a total estimated average audience of 8.7M, or 33% of Australia. While the industry primarily uses Metro FTA TV for its ratings snapshot, a cross-platform approach is essential to accurately quantify sports audiences, before comparing with other programs.

And finally, this is just the live average audience. Let’s not forget the highlights clips on every major news channel, website, social media page; and that Sam Kerr goal being replayed for generations to come! The Matilda’s Instagram account broke records last week post-QF - and has only grown since. More on that next week.

In the meantime, at least I can cheer both England and Australia in different games this weekend. Let’s bring it home!

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, and if you enjoyed reading, please share with friends and colleagues.

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