Sky Sports and BBC see record WSL audiences over weekend

Sky Sports and the BBC both reported record viewing figures for their coverage of the Women’s Super League at the weekend.

The matches, which took place during the Premier League break for the men’s internationals, brought in a significantly increased viewership.

For Sky, Sunday’s Manchester derby in the WSL brought with it a record average viewing figure of 485k (peaking at 589k) to watch Manchester City’s victory over rivals Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Last year, Broadcast Sport reported on a previous Sky Sports viewing record for a WSL match, when Liverpool and Chelsea attracted a record number of viewers to Sky Sports. The match, in September 2022 reached a peak of 482k and an average audience of 381k, which itself was a 21% increase on the previous season’s biggest average.

So, an average audience increase in excess of 100k from a year ago is a noteworthy achievement.

Meanwhile, the BBC also reported record numbers for the Chelsea v Liverpool WSL clash on Saturday, which saw Chelsea win 5-1. The match had an average audience on the BBC of 796k viewers and a peak of 955k.

There were a further 141,000 requests to watch the fixture, which saw Lauren James score a hat-trick for her club, on BBC iPlayer.

Until this game, Arsenal v Aston Villa was the most watched game of the 2023/24 season, at 766k, which also aired on the BBC.