Millions More People Watched the Womens World Cup Final than 2018 Mens Final

Once again, the U.S. womens soccer team has dominated the World Cup. On Sunday, the team emerged victorious for the second year in a row—and whats more, ratings for the final game jumped 20 percent over last years viewership for the 2018 mens final. That difference translates to at least a couple million viewers.

According to Variety, Sundays game netted a 10.0 overnight metered market rating; total viewership has not yet been reported. Still, Variety notes the figure is already a 20 percent jump over last years, which reached an 8.3 rating and ultimately attracted 12.5 million total viewers. Plus, the trade reports, the semifinal between the U.S. and the U.K. actually set a viewership record for the year across the pond.

That said, this years ratings will not be enough to beat the all-time record: as The Hollywood Reporter notes, that distinction still goes to the 2015 game in which the U.S. womens team faced off against Japan, which scored a 15.2 overnight rating and reached 25.4 million viewers across Fox, Telemundo, and streaming platforms. (That match, unlike this years, aired in primetime.) T.H.R. posits that once final ratings are in, this years final will place third or fourth of all time—after 1999s womens final match, which drew 18 million viewers, and possibly 2011s, which drew 13.5 million. But Deadline has projected that this game will net closer to 19 million total viewers—so it could, theoretically, become the second most-watched Womens World Cup final of all time.

The implications of this win—both the in-game victory and the ratings triumph over last years mens tournament—run deeper than a trite message of “girl power.” Even as the players collected their trophy, the audience in the stands began chanting two words: “Equal pay.” As BuzzFeed notes, the 2015 team, some members of which are still playing soccer for the US, sued the US Soccer Federation for gender discrimination, alleging their pay and working conditions were subpar compared to the nations mens team—despite the fact the womens team outmatches its male counterpart in both athletic performance and revenue generation. Per The Washington Post, the federation has denied the lawsuits claims, and argued that pay differences between male and female players are “based on differences in aggregate revenue generated by the different teams and/or any other factor other than sex.” The male and female teams, the group argues, are “physically and functionally separate organizations.”

Either way, these ratings appear to be just one more example of how the womens team is beating not only its international opponents, but also its male counterpart back home. Now might be time for thRead More – Source

Vanity Fair