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The EuroBasket 2022 national team tournament pulled strong TV audience numbers across the continent, with Spain’s 88-76 final triumph over France gaining a combined peak audience of 11.5 million across both countries, the International Basketball Federation’s (Fiba) has confirmed.
Mediaset Espana’s free-to-air (FTA) commercial channel Telecinco drew an average audience of 3.75 million and a peak of 8.5 million for the final in Spain. Those numbers meant the final became the most viewed basketball game in Spain since the men’s 2019 Fiba Basketball World Cup final.
Meanwhile, French commercial broadcaster M6 reported an average domestic viewership of 2.3 million and peak of three million, with the numbers not accounting for those watching on French cable channel Canal+.
In Germany, more than four million people watched Spain’s semi-final win over Die Mannschaft, which was shown on both the Magenta and RTL networks. The third-place game between Poland and Germany also generated major viewership in Poland, with FTA broadcaster TVP1 scoring a peak audience of 1.3 million. Both semi-finals, the third-place game and final were all broadcast on FTA channels in all four countries that made the final four.
Fiba also reported strong viewership in other European countries, both in ‘traditional powerhouses’ like Greece and Slovenia, but also in ‘newer markets’ such as Finland.
The tournament’s official website also brought in 21.5 million total page views during EuroBasket 2022, while also scoring 4.2 billion social media impressions and 971 million video content views during the same period. About half of the 140 million social engagements were attributed to Fiba’s own content, with the EuroBasket official accounts gaining 358,000 followers.
A total of 651,000 fans attended 76 games in the Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany and Italy, which was almost double the total amount from the 2017 tournament. The 2025 edition is set to be co-hosted by Cyprus, Finland, Latvia and Poland.
Kamil Novak, Fiba executive director for Europe, said: “With Fiba EuroBasket 2022 now concluded, I think we can unequivocally say that it was the best in many different regards.
“The 2022 edition will go down in the books as the strongest one to date with the top European stars answering the call for their national teams. The unprecedented digital engagement from fans and the popularity of the event on TV confirms its continuous growth in stature in Europe and beyond, with attendance numbers for the event also very powerful.”
