- Viewership of the tournament was up in India, China and USA
- Tournament final watched by average audience of 328m globally
The delayed Uefa 2020 European Championship national team soccer tournament was viewed by a cumulative global audience of 5.23 billion viewers, the European soccer body has revealed.
England’s defeat on penalties in the final generated a live average audience of 328 million globally, as well as scoring strongly in the local markets of the two participants. The game was the most-watched TV event in the UK for 24 years and the most watched in Italy for nine years.
On average, matches during the tournament in June and July reached more than 100 million fans.
Compared to the 2016 edition of the tournament, viewership increased by 229 per cent in India, which delivered a cumulative audience of 107 million. Audience figures were also up in China by 43 per cent to 352 million and in the United States by 32 per cent to 87 million.
On social media, the Euros set a new record of 7.5 billion views and interactions across all platforms. Of these, two billion were direct engagements with Uefa’s official accounts.
The final drew in 397 million views and interactions across social platforms, which was more than twice the number of engagements of any previous match in the tournament. The top trending post was viewed 59 million times on TikTok.
Guy Laurent Epstein, Uefa’s marketing director, said: “Digitally, we have seen incredible engagement during the tournament, and we are extremely satisfied with the performance of our own Uefa platforms.
“The Uefa.com website and application has seen a 250 per cent increase in traffic compared to 2016.
“It shows that our content offer has been extremely well received by fans and that our digital set-up is amazing.”
On the increase in viewership, he added: “The incredible TV audience figures show the massive appeal that [the European Championship] has, not only in Europe but worldwide.
“The tournament has a global audience which continues to grow, in particular in North America and Asia, where the fanbase following [the tournament] keeps expanding.
“We also note that there is an ever-increasing number of fans accessing matches through streaming services.”
The strong numbers were revealed as Uefa announced a new sponsorship deal for its club tournaments, with banking firm Swissquote agreeing a new three-year partnership that covers the Europa League and Europa Conference League.
Euro 2020 was viewed by a cumulative global audience of 5.23 billion viewers, the European soccer body has revealed.
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