The UEFA European Championship 2024 has seen a surge in viewership across Europe as the tournament progresses into its knockout stages. The round-of-16 games, in particular, have drawn significant attention from sports fans and sports betting enthusiasts alike.
In the UK, audiences reached a new high for England match against Slovakia of round of 16. The game was broadcast on commercial free-to-air broadcaster ITV and drew an average audience of 15.6 million across its primary ITV1 channel and ITVX OTT service.
This match peaked at 18.4 million viewers, holding a national audience share of 66%. This made it the most-watched TV event on ITV since its coverage of the FIFA World Cup matches in 2022- soccer's biggest quadrennial event. England's previous fixture against Slovenia also performed well with an audience of 15.4 million viewers - which had been the highest event on ITV until that point in 2024.
Spain registered highest audience yet
Meanwhile, Spain saw record-breaking numbers for their late fixture against Georgia during Euro 2024. An average of over nine million viewers tuned into watch Spain’s triumphant win over Georgia – improving upon their previous high from their victory over Italy during group stage matches.
This match achieved a remarkable national audience share of more than sixty percent on La1 (owned by state-owned media group Television Europa), making it the largest TV audience in Spain for that year so far.
Spain's strong performances throughout Euro 2024 have consistently brought high domestic viewership numbers for all games played by them so far – including wins over Albania and Croatia which also performed well with La1 audiences.
Contrasting viewership of Germany and Italy
On June 29th, Germany saw impressive domestic viewership numbers with national broadcaster ZDF drawing an average of 23.6 million viewers, accounting for a market share of 76.8%.
In contrast, Italy's round-of-16 loss to Switzerland resulted in lower viewership numbers. The Italy match was watched by 10.7 million viewers on free-to-air (Rai) and 1.65 million on pay-TV (Sky Italia), marking the team’s second-worst TV viewership performance of the competition.
The UEFA European Championship 2024 has proven to be a major draw for sports fans across Europe, with record-breaking audiences tuning in to watch their national teams compete in this prestigious tournament.
As we move further into the knockout stages, it will be interesting to see how these trends continue and which matches will capture the attention of millions more around Europe.
