UEFA have announced that the recent EURO 2020 tournament was a landmark global success with over 5.2 billion people tuning in from continents across the world.
As the first major sporting event to be staged since the COVID-19 pandemic put the world in its entirety on hold, the popularity of UEFA EURO 2020 was a reflection that the power of football has in uniting people.
The hugely successful tournament – which saw Italy beat England in penalties in the final – left its mark in viewership history, ranking amongst the most viewed moments of all time and breaking live streaming records along the way.
The Final was watched by 328 million fans, on par with the record set in 2016. The match between Italy and England at Wembley Stadium was the most-watched TV event in the United Kingdom in 24 years and in Italy since 2012. The match also set all-time streaming records for any type of programming in both countries.
“The incredible TV audience figures show the massive appeal that EURO has, not only in Europe but worldwide,” UEFA marketing director Guy-Laurent Epstein said.
“The tournament has a global audience which continues to grow, in particular in North America and Asia, where the fan base following EURO keeps expanding.
“We also note that there is an ever-increasing number of fans accessing matches through streaming services.”
On average each live match was watched by over 100 million viewers with impressive increases in viewership in global markets such as China, where a growth rate of 43% was registered compared to 2016, with a cumulative audience of 352 million.
The event saw more Chinese fans accessing matches through streaming services than through traditional TV. In the USA, audiences grew by 32% with a cumulative TV audience of 87 million. India registered a growth rate of 229%, and a cumulative audience of 107 million.
On social media, there were 7.5 billion interactions and views of which two billion were generated by official UEFA accounts, making it the most engaged EURO ever.
“Digitally, we have seen incredible engagement during the tournament, and we are extremely satisfied with the performance of our own UEFA platforms,” Epstein added.
“The UEFA.com website and application has seen a 250% 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.”
