By Paul Nicholson
June 26 – The Women’s World Cup quarter finals kick off tonight in Canada with European heavyweights Germany and France facing each other in the first match in Montreal before China facing the US in Ottawa. The winners will meet each other on June 30 in the semi-final in Montreal.
On the other side of the draw Japan meet Australia in Edmonton, while hosts Canada close off the round against England in Vancouver in front of what will be a packed and passionate 56,000 crowd. The winners will meet each other in the semi-final in Edmonton on July 1.
In terms of the battle of the confederations and where the power balance lies in women’s football, UEFA and the Asian Football Confederation have three nations each in the quarter finals, while CONCACAF (north and central America and the Caribbean) have two. There are no representatives from CONMEBOL (South America) or Africa in the last eight.
The match-ups keep alive the possibility that both finalists could come from one confederation.
Looking at the betting odds, Germany and the US are by far the favourites at around 2-1, followed by Japan and France on 6-1, then Canada at 10-1, Australia at 16-1, with England and China considered outsiders at 20-1 and 66-1 respectively. A German win overall would complete an impressive World Cup double with the men’s team having won in Brazil last year.
The Canada 2015 World Cup has set new records in terms of viewing and attendance and the quarter finals look certain to set new high marks.
FIFA have announced that the Round of 16 again broke more records for television audiences in almost all their key TV markets around the world.
An average of 2.8 million viewers in Canada tuned in to CTV, TSN and RDS to watch the hosts beat Switzerland to line up their quarter-final clash with England. That audience made it the most watched programme on Canadian television that day and a record for Canada from any Women’s World Cup.
China’s victory over Cameroon, shown on CCTV in China, attracted an average audience of 5 million – a new high for the 2015 competition so far and beating any Chinese audience from the 2011 edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
France’s win against Korea Republic smashed the channel audience record for French broadcaster W9. An average of 2.8 million fans watched the match on W9, also more than any audience figures seen from France in 2011.
Perhaps most interestingly in the battle for recognition for the women’s game against the men’s, in Germany ARD drew an average audience of 6.1 million (8.5% TVR) viewers from 10pm. This was the leading sports broadcast on German television over the weekend, beating the German Men’s Under-21 European Championships audience of 4.9 million (6.8% TVR) on Saturday during prime time on ZDF as well as the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix Race on RTL which received 4.8 million (6.7% TVR) viewers on Sunday.
FIFA’s YouTube channel has similarly been boosted and has now reached more than 10 million views for content from Canada, totalling some 19 million minutes of viewing.
June has been the most successful month on record for the channel with 21 million views up to and including June 22, beating the previous monthly record of 18.5 million views hit in June 2014 (when the Brazil 2014 World Cup was in play).
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