As the year comes to a close, the news for the USMNT ratings was pretty good. This was not a surprise as they made their return to the World Cup. Playing four games in the World Cup tends to increase viewership.
Unfortunately for the USWNT, the news was not so good in terms of television ratings. Those numbers are down 10% compared to last year. However, there are several explanations for it. First, a look at the numbers.
USWNT TV Ratings in 2022
takeaway
Over the course of 13 games in 2022, the USWNT averaged 362,692 viewers per game. That’s a 10% drop from 401,913 viewers per game in 2021. It’s also 92% lower than the 4,467,167 the MNT averaged this year. But it’s 20% more than the same year in the previous cycle (2018) when it drew 302,421 viewers per game over the course of 19 games. And it looks like it will increase substantially next year during the Women’s World Cup.
numbers not available
There may be 13 games with viewership numbers, but the USWNT actually played 18 games in 2022. The remaining 5 games were the Women’s World Cup Qualifying Tournament. While the previous two editions of the tournament were held in the United States, this one was played in Mexico. As a result, the games were shown on the CBS Sports Network. Because that’s a channel Nielsen doesn’t track, there are no viewership figures available for those games.
Lack of numbers in Spanish
One of the most underrated assets for watching the US national team is Spanish-language television. With so many people here in the US from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Argentina, Cuba, etc., it seems silly not to count them in the audience.
While Spanish viewing numbers may be readily available for MNT, they seem to be in short supply for WNT. In fact, not a single WNT game in 2022 has an audience number available in Spanish. This comes after only three such issues were available in both 2020 and 2021.
General
While the WNT certainly didn’t have the same mind-blowing numbers that the NTM enjoyed in 2022, there were positive signs. The main one was better numbers than during the same year of the previous cycle. And, with next year’s Women’s World Cup, the numbers will rise in viewership ratings.
PHOTO: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire
