The 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand will be the most-attended edition of the tournament yet, with more than 1.5m tickets sold just days into the month-long event.
The previously best-attended Women’s World Cup, in Canada in 2015, saw 1.35m spectators through the gates across the tournament. Already more than 1.1m tickets have been sold to matches in Australia alone.
“This tournament is creating history and we are delighted as host nation,” Football Australia chief executive, James Johnson, said in a statement.
“We are seeing a surge in support for women’s football, not just in ticket sales, but also in broadcast viewership, fan festival participation and merchandise sales.”
Fifa announced on Monday that the 1,500,000th ticket was sold to a New Zealand family, who were met by Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, and offered tickets to further matches.
The average attendance for the tournament to date has been just under 30,000, a significant improvement on the average of 21,756 at the 2019 World Cup in France.
The Matildas’ opening encounter against Ireland drew a record-breaking 75,784 fans to Stadium Australia, the largest crowd for an Australian women’s national team game.
The tournament has also been attracting big television audiences, at home and abroad. Australia’s opening match was watched by almost 2 million viewers on Channel Seven, while England’s clash with Haiti on Saturday attracted a peak audience in the UK of 4.2 million – surpassing the viewership for the opening match of the home Euros last year.
Australian midfielder Katrina Gorry expressed her excitement at the buzz around the tournament on Monday.
“It’s been awesome,” she said. “We’ve been watching every game and the support that all the games are getting is pretty incredible to sit back and watch.
“The amount of people that are talking, not only about the Matildas but every team and how competitive this World Cup is, it’s pretty special that it is on home soil, to be sharing it with family and friends is even more special.”
But Gorry said the Matildas were only focused on winning once their match began.
“We definitely soak it up when we can, but when we’re on the pitch, when we’re playing, we cancel that out and just focus on what we can do best,” she said.
The Matildas face Nigeria on Thursday, in a sold-out clash at Brisbane Stadium.
“The Australian public has demonstrated how much they love the game and the CommBank Matildas and have come out in numbers at all matches across the country and we thank them for their exceptional support,” Johnson said.
