UEFA Nations League final grows TV audience
October 19, 2021
The UEFA Nations League final tournament held in Italy from October 6th to 10th featuring France, Spain, Italy and Belgium, became the tournament’s most-watched edition yet. The overall live match television audience increased by 30 per cent compared with the inaugural UEFA Nations League finals in Portugal in June 2019.
The tournament, which was won by France, could be watched in more than 200 countries and territories across the globe, with over 80 broadcasters screening the games. There was an estimated cumulative live audience of 130 million, and an estimated reach in excess of 200 million, according to figures from UEFA.
The impact of the tournament was also clear on digital platforms, with over 230 million global social interactions. On UEFA’s social media platforms, some 353 million impressions (an increase of 28 per cent from the previous edition) were recorded during the week of the finals, while cross-platform engagements more than doubled from 9.4 million to 19.2 million and video views soared to 78 million from 28 million.
Overall, the UEFA Nations League finals provided a great opportunity to celebrate some of the most-talked-about international players on social media, such as Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku and Kylian Mbappé. The figures were impressive across UEFA.com and the UEFA Nations League app, with a 200 per cent increase in page views and a 3,000 per cent rise in the number of app visits, driven in part by the successful retention of users from UEFA Euro 2020.
Guy-Laurent Epstein, UEFA marketing director, commented: “These excellent television audience and social media figures show there is significant interest in the UEFA Nations League from football fans in Europe and beyond. The tournament is a huge asset for European football and has demonstrated it delivers world-class matches for live and TV audiences alike. The UEFA Nations League was designed to create competitive matches at every level of national-team football and, judging by the interest, especially in the four countries who participated in the final tournament, it has done just that.”
A total audience of 62.9 million watched on from Belgium, France, Italy and Spain – the four teams who participated in the final tournament. Within these competing markets, the UEFA Nations League finals enjoyed the highest live match audiences since the competition’s inception.
The draw for the 2022–23 edition of the UEFA Nations League will take place on December 16th in Montreux, Switzerland.