Fox Sports will kick off coverage of the month-long soccer Women’s World Cup Thursday (July 20) from Australia and New Zealand, looking to build on the momentum generated by the two-time defending champion United States team as well as from last fall’s Men’s World Cup.
Fox and FS1 will offer English-language coverage for all 64 World Cup matches while Telemundo, Universo and Peacock provide Spanish-language coverage of the games. The U.S. women’s team will take the field July 21 against Vietnam, followed by the Netherlands on July 26 and Portugal on August 1.
The Women’s World Cup final will take place on August 20 from Australia, according to Fox Sports.
Fox Sports hopes its World Cup ratings success from the 2022 men’s tournament in Qatar, which posted a 30% audience increase over the 2018 Men’s World Cup tournament from Russia. The Argentina-France final set a record for a Men's World Cup English-language telecast with more than 16 million viewers tuning in across Fox and Fox Sports streaming services, Nielsen reported.
Fox Sports president of production and operations/executive producer Brad Zager spoke with Multichannel News about the upcoming Women’s World Cup soccer tournament, a lightly edited version of which appears below.
MCN: What are the advantages of the Australian venue for the Women’s World Cup?
Brad Zager: The advantage is you're in one of the prettiest, amazing sites to be able to host the Women’s World Cup. We feel like that will definitely come across to the viewers at home from our location at Campbells Cove with the iconic Sydney Opera House behind us. We’re excited about showcasing Sydney through our coverage as well as the other venues including New Zealand where most of the early U.S. team matches will be.
MCN: Will the time differences between the U.S. and the World Cup venues serve as a detriment to viewership?
BZ: When you sign up for the World Cup, you know that is part of it, so you just go with it. The first couple of matches have the U.S. team in New Zealand, and that two-hour difference with Sydney does help us, especially on the East Coast. Hopefully we'll get off to a great start and gain momentum. The U.S. team is such a big story and I think it'll transcend any time zone issue. That’s a story everybody likes to get behind in this country, no matter what time they’re playing.
MCN: How much momentum does women's soccer have going into the World Cup?
BZ: I can’t imagine any more momentum than the U.S. team going for a three-peat. This is just an amazing group of athletes representing the U.S., and nobody has any less expectations than another win, so I think there’s a ton of momentum. Then you have the fact that the men’s World Cup soccer tournament just played this past fall, so there hasn’t been a huge gap between the momentum created for soccer by the amazing World Cup final in the fall and the beginning of the Women’s World Cup tournament.
