For the United Kingdom, ITV and BBC will alternately cover all 64 games of the 2023 Women’s World Cup tournament which begins on July 20 in Auckland, New Zealand.
ITV and the BBC collaborated with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to get the rights. If the rights offers were not increased, FIFA had previously threatened a TV blackout over all of Europe. The arrangement is made with barely five weeks till the competition.
Half of the tournament matches will be covered by ITV across its networks ITV1 and ITV4, with replays available on its streaming service ITVX. Additionally, match highlights will be available on ITVX and ITV’s social media channels. Before the event, build-up programming will also be broadcast on ITV4 and ITVX.
Niall Sloane, director of sport for ITV, commented on the agreement, stating that it “promises to provide memorable moments with the popularity of women’s football continuing to grow.”
England’s Lionesses are entering the World Cup Finals as European champions and fans have been able to follow their progress to qualification on ITV through our coverage of the World Cup qualifiers, so we hope they’ll join us to see all the action from Australia and New Zealand throughout the tournament.”
“We have shown every Women’s World Cup on the BBC since 1999 and we are happy to extend our partnership with FIFA for the upcoming tournament,” added Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport.”
“The growth of the women’s game is extraordinary, demonstrated by the 28 million who watched BBC coverage of the 2019 Women’s World Cup and the huge audience of 17.4 million who watched our coverage of the Euro 2022 final last summer.”
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