Beyond Greatness™
Breaking records
The ninth edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup was co-hosted by Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand in what was a record-breaking tournament of firsts.
Opening Day brought its share of thrills on the pitch, with a big upset win for one host country and a tense match that ended in victory for the other. With over 115,000 fans attending two Stadiums on the first matchday, the football world turned its attention to a FIFA Women’s World Cup filled with excitement, drama, passion, and records.
The tournament showed that standards were rising and generated USD 570 million, allowing it to break even.
FIFA Women’s World Cup to be staged in two countries
senior FIFA tournament hosted in Oceania
With 32 teams and 64 matches
FIFA tournament to be staged in 2 confederations
Where nations from all 6 confederations won a match
Ever in fan attendance (1,978,274)
Ever to break even (USD $570m in revenue)
Continued to break new ground
The expansion of the tournament gave more countries the chance to experience the global showpiece. In line with this expansion, FIFA implemented even more tournament firsts in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand in order to grow the competition:
First with dedicated Team Base Camps
First with a coordinated Legacy Working Group
First to honour Indigenous people & culture
First with FIFA Fan Festivals – 777,000 visitors
First to feature over 160 goals
First with ringfenced performance-based funding for all 736 players
Stadiums
With ten total stadiums spread across nine cities and two countries, this is the first time a FIFA Women’s World Cup took place in two different countries.
Australia
Sydney/Wangal: Stadium Australia (Capacity: 75,784)
Sydney/Gadigal: Sydney Football Stadium (Capacity: 40,583)
Brisbane/Meeanjin (Capacity: 49,461)
Melbourne/Naarm (Capacity: 27,706)
Perth/Boorloo (Capacity: 18,727)
Adelaide/Tarntanya (Capacity: 13,557)
Aotearoa New Zealand
Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau (Capacity: 43,217)
Wellington/Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Capacity: 33,132)
Dunedin/Ōtepoti (Capacity: 25,947)
Hamilton/Kirikiriroa (Capacity: 18,009)
More teams, more competition
This year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup was bigger than it’s ever been. It featured more teams – 32, up from 24 – played in front of bigger crowds and watched by bigger audiences around the world on screens large and small.
Compared to France 2019 and Canada 2015, goals per game decreased from approximately 2.80 to 2.55 per match.
There were more clean sheets in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand than ever before. 43% of performances resulted in a clean sheet – an increase of over 10% compared with the last two editions of the tournament.
84% of players named in squads took to the field in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. This is an increase from 80% at France 2019.
34 goals were scored from set plays, including 28 goals from corners and six from free kicks. Significantly, finalists Spain and England did not concede a goal from a set play throughout the tournament.
FIFA’s Technical Study Group identified that teams that went further in the tournament generally had more efficient pressing strategies.
Progress is the biggest success story of this tournament so far. Emerging nations are showing they can compete at this level and the gaps with the top teams are closing.
Jill Ellis, FIFA Technical Study Group lead
Goals scored, the most ever at a FIFA Women’s World Cup, surpassing the previous highest of 146 at the 2015 tournament in Canada and the 2019 installment in France.
Zambia’s Barbra Banda scored the 1000th goal in FIFA Women’s World Cup history against Costa Rica.
FIFA Women's World Cup match win: New Zealand, Philippines, Zambia, Portugal, Jamaica, South Africa, and Morocco.
Time to reach the final: England, and Spain
Time title-winner: Spain
The greatest football party in the world
The FIFA Fan Festival™ in all nine Host Cities across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand went beyond football. They offered fans a vibrant destination to enjoy the best in football, music, entertainment, local culture, food, and games.
FIFA Fan Festivals (formerly FIFA Fan Fests) have been a regular feature of the FIFA World Cup since 2006, but this year’s tournament in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand was the first time this unique fan experience was offered in all host cities of the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Venues for the FIFA Fan Festivals:
Australian Venues
Adelaide/Tarntanya – Festival Plaza
Brisbane/Meaanjin – South Bank Parklands
Melbourne/Naarm – Federation Square
Perth/Boorloo – Forrest Place
Sydney/Gadigal – Tumbalong Park
Aotearoa New Zealand Venues
Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau – The Cloud
Hamilton/Kirikiriroa – Claudelands Event Centre
Wellington/Te Whanganui-a-Tara – Shed 6
Dunedin/Ōtepoti – Dunedin Town Hall & Glenroy Auditorium
FIFA Fan Festivals held in host cities
Fans visited the FIFA Fan Festivals
Highest single-day attendance of fans visiting the FIFA Fan Festival™ in Melbourne/Naarm (Federation Square).
Whether you are an avid fan, or a football newcomer, the FIFA Fan Festival™ provides an exciting entertainment space that brings people together beyond football.
Volunteers
Volunteers contributed greatly to the overall FIFA Women’s World Cup™ and fan experience. Approximately 5,000 volunteers supported the tournament, with each member of the volunteer workforce creating their own unique experience.
95% of volunteers from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
68 nations and all six Confederations represented in the volunteer team
Volunteers make it happen. If you don't have the volunteers to support the tournament, you're not going to get a successful World Cup.
Hilda Jacewicz, Member of the volunteer transport team
Digital Engagement
FIFA surpassed digital traffic for the entirety of the 2019 tournament in just 14 days, welcoming 22 million unique users throughout the Group Stage.
Over 3 billion views of content were achieved on FIFA’s social and digital platforms.
visitors engaged with FIFA’s digital platforms throughout the tournament
By the end of the tournament FIFA’s Women’s World Cup accounts had a cumulative 8.3 million followers – this is the largest global community for women’s football and sport.
Transform the tournament experience
Ticketing
This year's FIFA Women's World Cup set the record attendance for a standalone women’s football match in Australia.
Over 1,800,000 tickets were sold, comfortably surpassing the tournament’s ticket sales targets (which was initially 1.3 million sales before being upgraded to 1.5 million sales)
The record crowd for a football match in Aotearoa New Zealand – women’s or men’s – was broken twice in the space of a fortnight. Match 1 between New Zealand and Norway set a new record attendance figure in Aotearoa (42,137), before this figure was eclipsed by Match 61 between Spain and Sweden (43,217).
Total attendance record
Record crowd for a women’s football match in Australia
Record crowd for a football match in Aotearoa New Zealand
Average crowd
Hospitality
Interest in experiencing the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ in Hospitality grew:
46,850 Hospitality guests were hosted at FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, 45% more than at France 2019.
The Final between Spain and England featured the largest Hospitality attendance ever at a FIFA Women’s World Cup match, with 6,890 guests welcomed and entertained.
Enhance the value of women’s football
Broadcasting
Broadcast figures from around the world were overwhelmingly positive – with records broken across multiples countries on a near daily basis.
Learn more about the 200+ partners that broadcasted the tournament:
The average audience for the whistle-to-whistle coverage of the Final between England and Spain on BBC1 and ITV1 was 13.21 million viewers – the highest FIFA Women’s World Cup audience on record in the UK.
La1’s coverage of the Final delivered the second-highest sporting audience of the year in Spain, and became the record FIFA Women’s World Cup audience in the territory.
Over 11 million Australians were reached for Australia’s semi-final vs. England on free-to-air and BVOD (Broadcaster Video on Demand) – the most watched programme in Australian TV history.
Viewers for Australia vs. England semi-final match on Seven’s linear channel and digital platform, 7Plus. According to Seven, this was the most-watched television programme on record.
Of the entire population of New Zealand viewed the tournament across Sky Sport & PRIME (a total of 1.8m).
Viewing audience for Colombia vs. Germany in Germany. This was the second highest TV audience on any channel in Germany throughout 2023 and the largest FIFA Women’s World Cup viewership in the country since the tournament was hosted in Germany in 2011.
Coverage of Colombia’s first match of the tournament secured over 9m viewers. This was over three times the previous top FIFA Women’s World Cup audience in the territory.
China PR produced the highest audience for a single match anywhere in the world, with an astonishing 53.9m viewers watching their group stage encounter with England.
Commercial Partnerships
The tournament was supported by standalone commercial programming, with many commercial affiliates signed for this tournament only, or as dedicated women’s football partners.
The first-ever dedicated FIFA Women’s World Cup partnership programme sold out with a strong line-up of brands from across the globe.
The commercial partnership programme for this year's FIFA Women's World Cup increased over 100% from 12 (six partners and six host country supporters) during the 2019 tournament to 30 in 2023.
Licensing/Merchandising
63 FIFA Stores across the ten Stadiums and nine FIFA Fan Festivals – more touchpoints with fans throughout their FIFA Women’s World Cup™ journey than ever before.
In 2019 there was no retail presence at FIFA’s Fan Experience sites. In 2023, there was a FIFA Store at each FIFA Fan Festival™, with a two-story flagship store in Sydney/Gadigal.
Scarves and beanies were among the items with the highest demand.