August 1st, 2023, Stephan Shakespeare
Despite the big time differences, there’s no shortage of excitement for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023: our recent survey showed that a majority of fans in England (75%), France (77%), Germany (75%), Spain (89%), and Italy (86%) would be pleased if their team won the competition.
And looking at data from YouGov FootballIndex from the beginning of this year’s tournament, as well as last year’s men’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar, we can see that, in terms of public perception, the women’s competition is beating the men’s contest in some key areas.
Looking at the Impression metric, which measures general sentiment, we can see that scores for the Women’s World Cup were at 22.7 on 20 July 2023 – the beginning of the 2023 tournament. At the start of the men’s contest last year, (20 November 2022), the equivalent scores were at -13.4.
It's a similar story if we look at Value (whether a sporting event represents a good return on investment for those paying to see it live or on TV): the FIFA Women’s World Cup had a score of 4.9 on the first day of the tournament, while the men’s had a score of -11.5. Reputation scores for the women’s tournament (15.6) which measure whether a sporting event has a good or poor reputation, also exceeded the men’s (-1.7), as did Recommend scores (FIFA Women’s World Cup: 9.8; men’s FIFA World Cup: 1.5).