Sweden’s Tele2 says women’s sports has brought in new audiences
On the eve of the FIFA Women’s World Cup final, KPN has launched W-Sport channel which offers 24/7 women’s sports. From today, any KPN viewer on its basic package can get a daily fix of football, motorsport, basketball, volleyball and other sports.
With the World Cup smashing audience figures globally, KPN’s timing is appropriate. “As a proud sponsor of the KNVB, Orange and the Orange Lionesses and main sponsor of the Eredivisie football, KPN has a warm heart for the sport,” said KPN VP partnerships, TV & entertainment Jochem de Jong, VP Partnerships, TV & Entertainment KPN. “With the arrival of W-Sport in the Netherlands, a more diverse range of sports experiences is being created and we at KPN only applaud that.”
W-Sport launched in Belgium on Telenet and Proximus in September 2022 and is available in more than 40 countries worldwide. In March pay-TV platform MEO, owned by telco Altice, added W-Sport to its offering in Portugal. In July, W-Sport expanded its network into Southeast Asia thanks to a new distribution agreement with Malaysian broadcaster Astro.
“This is another fantastic step in the evolution of W-Sport. We are delighted to be working with KPN. The inclusion of the channel in their basic package fits perfectly with our strategy to make elite sports for women accessible to the widest possible audience,” said W-Sport CEO Kelly Butler. “The development of and involvement in women’s sport worldwide continues at a rapid pace. Our content showcases the athletes and teams that inspire the current and next generation of participants and fans.”
Big stats in Sweden as the team progressed
Tele2 said the World Cup this year has an increased viewing time of 71% compared with the European Football Championship last year, even though the matches are shown in the morning. And the gap is narrowing between women’s and men’s football.
TV viewing of women’s football has also increased, and the number of unique viewers has increased by 13% since the European Football Championship last year, Tele2’s figures show.
“We see a higher proportion of viewers and longer viewing time on average this year compared to when the women’s national team played the European Championship last year. It should be borne in mind that last year’s games in England were played at more favourable times of the day than this year’s games in Australia and New Zealand. It is a positive trend for women’s football,” said Tele2 Head of TV & Play Niclas Rosendahl.
Tele2’s figures from 2022 show that average viewing of the men’s World Cup then lasted 18.61 hours per subscription, while viewing for this year’s World Cup so far amounts to 12.63 hours per subscription.
“The viewership has risen with each match so far. So the total number of hours is likely to increase during the upcoming finals,” added Rosendahl.
Tele2 delivers digital TV to around one million Swedish households. By following the TV traffic, Tele2 can conclude that viewing the semi-final between Sweden and Spain corresponded to approximately 30 percent of Swedish households.
Many also chose to watch the game on mobile and the viewing in Tele2 Play amounted to about five times more than at the same time in the morning the day before and about 75 percent more than during a normal weekday evening.
Never have so many people used streaming to watch the matches. Data traffic increased by 41% when Sweden’s match against Japan began. When the match against Spain began, the increase was 43%.