The recent UEFA Nations League final tournament in Italy delivered excellent action on the pitch, with all four matches being decided by a single goal, as France defeated Spain in the final to win the competition for the first time.
The finals, which also featured Italy and Belgium, proved a considerable success off the field too, becoming the tournament’s most-watched edition yet. The overall live match television audience increased by 30% compared with the inaugural UEFA Nations League finals in Portugal in June 2019.
Indeed, the finals could be watched in more than 200 countries and territories across the globe, with over 80 broadcasters screening the drama as it unfolded. There was an estimated cumulative live audience of 130 million, and an estimated reach in excess of 200 million.
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% from the previous edition) were recorded during the week of the finals, while cross-platform engagements more than doubled from 9.4m to 19.2m and video views soared to 78m from 28m.
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 equally impressive across UEFA.com and the UEFA Nations League app, with a 200% increase in page views and a 3,000% 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
“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.
These eye-catching UEFA Nations League audience figures reiterate how even in a calendar packed with live sport, national-team football continues to be one of the most-watched sporting, or even non-sporting, TV offerings.
The draw for the 2022–23 edition of the UEFA Nations League will take place on Thursday 16 December 2021 in Montreux, Switzerland.
