English-language TV ratings for USWNT Up 6% From 2023

The attendance for the United States Women’s National Team may have taken the slightest of dips in 2024, but that is not the case for their TV ratings. English-language viewership for the USWNT was 1,432,938 viewers per game in 2024, up 6% from last year and the best average viewership since 2019 (a Women’s World Cup year). With the TV ratings for the USMNT also up big in 2024, it’s safe to say this was a very good year, viewership wise, for US Soccer.

Here is the game by game breakdown of USWNT TV ratings on English-language TV in 2024.

The most obvious talking point is the whopping 9.4 million viewers for the Gold Medal Match against Brazil on NBC. That is the biggest viewing audience for any WNT game since the 2019 Women’s World Cup Final against the Netherlands (which drew 13,990,000 viewers on FOX) and is the second largest viewing audience for any WNT game in the last nine years.

It’s also unsurprising that the viewership this year would surpass last year’s, despite 2023 being a Women’s World Cup year. That reason is two-fold. First, the 2023 Women’s World Cup was in Australia and New Zealand while the 2024 Olympics were in Paris. While several of last year’s Women’s World Cup games were on in the very wee hours of the morning, the games at this year’s Olympics were in late morning or early afternoon time slots. Second, the team that went to the Women’s World Cup was a disaster. By falling in the Round of 16 to Sweden, they turned in the worst performance of any USWNT at a major tournament ever. Changes were needed and US Soccer made them by hiring Emma Hayes, who is widely regarded as the best manager in the women’s game. So not only did the US get a world class manager, they also went out and won the gold medal, and in doing so, gave themselves two more high viewership games than they did last summer. The result was the second best average viewership in the last nine years.

Here’s a year by year look at the USWNT’s average English-language viewership

Between the USWNT winning gold at the Olympics for the first time since 2012, the US U-23MNT making the knockout rounds at the Olympics for the first time since 2000, and the USMNT…..appearing…..at the Copa America for the first time since 2016, it was a very good viewership year for US Soccer.

The USWNT has five games scheduled already for 2025 and all five of them have broadcast information available. They get tings under way in February with the annual She Believes Cup, where all three games will air on TBS: against Colombia at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston with a 7pm kickoff on the 20th, a 4pm kickoff on the 23rd against Australia at State Farm Stadium in the Phoenix suburbs, and then on the 26th with a 9:30pm kickoff at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego against Japan. They follow that up with a pair of April friendlies against Brazil: 4pm on the 5th at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and then 9:30pm at PayPal Park in San Jose.

The attendance stayed mostly steady and the TV ratings were up in 2024 for the USWNT, leading many fans to hope that the success and popularity of the USWNT continue to push the popularity and growth of the beautiful game here in the United States. With so much high level soccer being played in the United States between 2023 and 2028, the sky could be the limit for the growth of the sport in this country. The Gold Cup was here in 2023, Copa America was here in 2024, the Gold Cup and the Club World Cup are here in 2025, the World Cup is here in 2026, the Gold Cup figures to be here in 2027, and Olympic soccer is here in 2028. If soccer can’t “make it” now, will it ever?

Photo Credit: The Courrier-Journal