MediaCity-based BBC Sport made history at the weekend as latest viewing figures reveal that its coverage of the England v France Women’s Rugby World Cup semi-final drew a record-breaking peak audience of 3.3m across BBC TV and digital platforms – the highest ever for a women’s rugby union match on UK television.
The match also drove a further 2.4m views on the BBC Sport live text pages.
The tournament has now reached an incredible 9.8m BBC TV viewers in total and driven 8.8m streams across BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport platforms to date, reflecting the rapidly rising profile of the women’s game.
The New Zealand v Canada semi-final drew a peak audience of 1.6 million viewers across BBC TV and iPlayer as Canada delivered a commanding performance to secure their own place in the final.
The Women’s Rugby World Cup continues to be a massive hit with digital audiences with currently 36m views on BBC Sport’s social media clips from the tournament. This is in addition to the 97.8m page views for all Rugby Union content on BBC Sport platforms, with 7.9m views on live Women’s Rugby World Cup reporting pages alone.
Clips from the brand-new BBC Radio 5 Live women’s rugby podcast Barely Rugby have also racked up an impressive 1.3m views across social media, showing a strong signal of growing engagement beyond the pitch.
Alex Kay-Jelski, director of BBC Sport: “The response to the Women’s Rugby World Cup has been phenomenal. These record-breaking figures reflect just how powerfully the tournament has connected with audiences across the UK. The Red Roses’ journey to the final has been inspiring, emotional, and unmissable, and BBC Sport has been proud to bring fans every moment of it.”
It’s not over yet – the sold out final between England and Canada this Saturday (27th September) promises to be another epic moment in the women’s summer of sport, with audiences being able to follow all the action with BBC Sport, live across TV, iPlayer, radio, BBC Sounds, online, and across social media platforms from 3pm, with the third-place playoff between between New Zealand v France on BBC iPlayer from 12.30pm.
