USWNT TV ratings down 10% from 2021

As the year comes to a close, TV ratings news for the USMNT has been pretty good. This was no surprise as they made their return to the World Cup. Playing four matches at the World Cup tends to boost viewership.

Unfortunately for the USWNT, the news was not so good in terms of TV ratings. Those numbers were 10% lower than last year. However, there are several explanations for this. Look at the numbers first.

USWNT TV ratings in 2022

Opponent	Event	Channel	Viewership
Czech Republic	She believes cup	ESPN	215,000
New Zealand	She believes cup	ABC	648,000
Iceland	She believes cup	ESPN2	295,000
Uzbekistan	Friendly	FOX	438,000
Uzbekistan	Friendly	ESPN2	165,000
Colombia	Friendly	FS1	259,000
Colombia	Friendly	ESPN	316,000
Niger	Friendly	FOX	474,000
Niger	Friendly	ESPN2	336,000
England	Friendly	FOX	726,000
Spain	Friendly	ESPN2	183,000
Germany	Friendly	FS1	323,000
Germany	Friendly	ESPN	337,000

Take away food

Over the course of 13 games in 2022, the USWNT averaged 362,692 viewers per game. That’s a 10% drop from 401,913 viewers per game in 2021. It’s also 92% lower than the 4,467,167 the MNT averaged this year. But it’s 20% more than the same year in the previous cycle (2018), when they drew 302,421 viewers per game over the course of 19 games. And it will rise significantly next year during the Women’s World Cup.

Unavailable numbers

There may be 13 ratings games, but the USWNT actually played 18 games in 2022. The missing 5 matches were the women’s World Cup qualifying tournament. While the two previous editions of the tournament were held in the US, this one was played in Mexico. As a result, the games were shown on CBS Sports Network. Since that is a channel not followed by Nielsen, ratings are not available for those games.

Lack of Spanish-language numbers

One of the most underrated assets for watching the US national team is Spanish-language TV. With so many people here in the US from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Argentina, Cuba, and so on, it seems silly not to count them in the viewership.

While Spanish-language ratings are readily available for the MNT, they appear to be sparse for the WNT. In fact, no WNT game in 2022 has available Spanish-language ratings. This comes after only three such numbers were available in both 2020 and 2021.

General

While the WNT certainly didn’t have the same eye-watering numbers as the MNT in 2022, there were positive signs. Chief among them were better numbers than in the same year of the previous cycle. And, with the Women’s World Cup next year there will be numbers in the ratings.

PHOTO: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire