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Digital viewership of the UEFA European U21 finals in Italy reached new levels across Europe, with the all-time record audience for the tournament broken in Germany.
With players of the stature of Spain’s Dani Ceballos, Moise Kean of Italy and Serbia’s Luka Jovic, who recently sealed a move to Real Madrid CF, the calibre of the competition was as strong as ever. This was reflected by the number of fans who tuned in to watch the tournament, with consistently strong digital audiences from the group stage to the final.
Germany recorded the highest ever audience for a match in the UEFA European U21 finals and the highest sport audience of the weekend, with some 9.2 million viewers, representing a third of the viewing market tuning into ARD to watch the match, which was a repeat of the final at the last edition of the tournament two years ago in Poland.
Italy, which was hosting its biggest football tournament since the FIFA World Cup in 1990, saw over 250,000 tickets sold for the whole of the competition. For those fans who could not get to the games, they watched the action digitally unfold in their millions at home.
There were strong live audiences throughout, with viewing figures of over five million and a market share of over 25% for each of their group games. Even with Italy exiting the competition following the group stage, interest remained strong with a cumulative audience of 16.1 million having tuned in to watch neutral match coverage, games not involving Italy, across Rai 2 and Rai Sport.
Meanwhile in Spain, the final proved to be the fourth highest sports audience of the year, only below the Copa del Rey Final, and the semi-finals of the same competition between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Broadcast on Cuatro, the final was watched by 35.8% of the market (an audience of 4.7 million viewers) and was the highest audience for the tournament in Spain since at least the 2002 edition of the competition.
“Records are there to be broken and we are delighted that interest was so high with some really strong audience figures from countries across the continent,” said UEFA’s director of marketing, Guy-Laurent Epstein.
“The UEFA European U21 finals feature some of the Europe’s brightest talents and the viewing figures show that there is a real appetite amongst the fans to watch top class UEFA national team football which of course brings extra value for our broadcast partners and sponsors.”
Interest in Romania, who had qualified for the tournament for the first time since 1988, was consistently high. Their final group stage match against France saw an impressive 35% of the total domestic audience tune in to see their side qualify for the semi-finals, while their last four defeat at the hands of Germany saw the match gain almost a 40% market share.
The next edition of the UEFA European U21 finals will take place in Hungary and Slovenia in 2021. The competition will be enlarged to 16 teams, meaning fans from across Europe and beyond, will be able to watch even more of the continent’s brightest talents take to the pitch.
