It was almost 10 pm in Sydney, Australia, on Wednesday, August 16, when Sam Kerr's volley skimmed the top corner of English goalkeeper Mary Earps' net. With five minutes to go in the World Cup semi-final between Australia's Matildas and the English Lionesses, the hearts of many of the 75,000 fans in Stadium Australia and the millions of Australians watching on television leapt out of their chests. The Matildas failed to qualify for their first-ever world final, losing 3-1 to the reigning European champions. But on Saturday, August 19, they'll be seeking consolation in the third-place play-off against Sweden (kick-off at 10 am, Paris time).
The Australian women's team can already congratulate themselves on a major triumph: the passion and enthusiasm of their compatriots has been growing steadily since the start of the competition co-hosted with New Zealand, on July 20. For the opening match against Ireland, the country's private broadcaster Seven had an average of 1.94 million viewers. This average grew to 7.13 million, with a peak of 11.5 million for the semi-final against England.
The Matildas – who had never before reached the semi-finals of a World Cup – set a new record: the match became the most-watched TV program since the current audience measurement system was introduced in 2001. Only the victory in the 400 meters by Cathy Freeman, Marie-José Pérec's rival at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, had more viewers. What dizzying heights would these figures have reached if Sam Kerr's (Chelsea F.C. Women's star striker) teammates had locked their place in for the finals on Sunday, August 20?
The attendance figures were just as impressive. The Australian team filled Sydney's Stadium Australia four times, with total attendance figures of 303,136 spectators and an average of 75,784 per match. The same was true of Brisbane Stadium, where some 100,000 fans packed the stands between the group-stage loss to Nigeria (49,156) and the epic quarter-final win over France (49,461). Ecstatic after the penalty shoot-out win, Mary and Allyssa, two young students from the state of Queensland's capital city, wearing the team's yellow tops, proclaimed their budding love for the Matildas: "Before this World Cup, we didn't know much about football. We love this team and we're proud of it."
More broadly speaking, this first 32-team World Cup is breaking attendance records, with FIFA, the international football federation, reporting almost 1.85 million spectators in the stadiums for the first 62 matches of the competition, and an average of 29,888 spectators at the 10 venues in Australia and New Zealand. That's 5,000 more than the previous tournament average of 24,780.
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