German women defeat every game of the men’s World Cup
The spectacle finale – the highlights in the video
Argentina wins one of the most spectacular World Cup finals in history. France saves with a crazy comeback to penalties. There Lionel Messi crowns his extraordinary career. The highlights in the video.
TV viewers’ interest in the World Cup in Qatar was low. That hardly changes in the final either. The balance of the public broadcasters is correspondingly sobering. Quota winner of the year remains the final from the summer.
IBeaten in the EM final, but number one in the 2022 quota balance: The German soccer players are surprisingly the TV queens of the year. No other sports program on German television had such a large television audience as the DFB selection in the lost final against England. However, the vice European champions benefited from a surprising drop in the Qatar quota of around 40 percent compared to the previous World Cup in Russia.
On July 31, 17.952 million people watched the EM final on the first channel, giving them a market share of 64.5 percent and first place. “We are very happy,” said national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg about the numbers. “Because it shows that this European Championship was very attractive in terms of sport. Not only our games, but also those of the other teams.” Three of the footballers’ games ended up in the top ten of the 2022 TV rankings. “It was a little summer fairy tale,” commented the national coach. “People wanted to see us!”
On the other hand, far fewer people than expected were interested in the World Cup. The games of the German men also attracted fewer fans to the screen than usual: in 2018 there was still an average of more than 25 million TV viewers, for the three DFB games of this World Cup the figure was not even 15 million. The World Cup game with the most TV viewers was Costa Rica vs Germany with 17.495 million (market share 53.1).
A symbolic image for the German performance in Qatar. The game against Costa Rica, which sealed the end, was the most successful in terms of TV ratings
Source: dpa/Christian Charisius
Other data also illustrate the reduced interest. At the 2018 World Cup in Russia there were 20 broadcasts with more than ten million TV viewers. At the tournament in Qatar there were only four. The final four years ago between France and Croatia (4-2) was watched by 21.45 million people on ZDF, compared to 13.86 million for Argentina’s 4-2 penalty shootout win over France on Sunday.
An average of four million fewer viewers than in 2018
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. Norbert Himmler said as director of ZDF: “That’s a mixed record for everyone involved.”
Lina Magull (right) and Sydney Lohmann attracted attention with their strong performances at the European Championship
Source: pa/dpa/Sebastian Christoph Gollnow
Telekom, which showed all games from Qatar for a fee, 16 of them exclusively, did not publish any exact figures, but spoke of “regularly seven-digit usage figures per game day”. In the case of exclusive games, there were more than 1.5 million viewers at the peak. The paid service MagentaTV has a total of four million customers.
The data on Internet use by the public broadcasters is not yet available. “The digital numbers were very good and are getting better and better, but they don’t make up for it by far,” said ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky.
Why was there such a slump at the World Cup? “Many people didn’t want to watch the World Cup for personal reasons and didn’t do it either,” said Voss-Tecklenburg, who herself worked as an expert on the second. “The elimination of the German national team after the group stage will probably also have been a reason.”
“The World Cup left many cold”
ARD man Balkausky commented similarly: “The World Cup left many cold. The performance of the German team, even before the World Cup, didn’t fly a spark.”
Despite the clear minus at the World Cup, football is unbeatable as a sport. “Football remains the spectators’ favorite child, regardless of the criticism of the World Cup,” said Balkausky. A look at the quota balance shows: Ski jumping is only in 41st place. 5.44 million people watched the New Year’s ski jump of the Four Hills Tournament.
The first live broadcasts from the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing (luge/5.148 million) and from the European Championships (5.125 million/track and field) follow in ranks 46 and 47 in the list.
The ten most successful sports programs in 2022
- July 31, ARD, European Football Championship women: England – Germany, viewers: 17.952 million, market share: 64.5%
- 01.12., ARD, World Cup men: Costa Rica – Germany, 17.495 million, 53.1%
- 27.11., ZDF, World Cup men: Spain – Germany, 17.064 million, 48.6%
- December 18, ARD, World Cup men: Argentina – France, 13.858 million, 53.6%
- July 27th, ZDF, European Football Championship women: Germany – France, 12.219 million, 46.8%
- December 14, ZDF, World Cup men: France – Morocco, 10.576 million, 36.1%
- July 21, ARD, European Football Championship women: Germany – Austria, 9.523 million, 37.6%
- November 23, ARD, World Cup men: Germany – Japan, 9.260 million, 59.0%
- 9th place – December 10th, ZDF, Football World Cup men: England – France, 9.145 million, 33.1%
- December 13th, ARD, World Cup men: Argentina – Croatia, 9.135 million, 31.0%
