2022 World Cup viewership falls in Norway, Germany while it peaks in US

football fans in Germany and Norway seem to be boycotting the World Cup in Qatar with viewership in both European countries significantly down compared to previous tournaments.

According to World Soccer Talk, football fans tuning in to watch the World Cup have fallen dramatically in comparison to the last World Cup in Norway. The average number of viewers in the opening seven group stage matches is about 188,000 per game while in 2018 around 521,000 viewers watched the games on average.

Norwegian experts claim that there could be multiple reasons for the falloff. "This is a special championship in many ways, which makes it difficult to compare the TV figures with previous editions. We have never had a football World Cup at this time of year, nor in a country that receives such massive criticism".

TV Press Manager Jan-Petter Dahl warned however of comparing previous figures, noting that "We are talking about early games, different matches, different times of the day. It is too early to make any comparisons based on previous championships".

Nevertheless, a similar trend can be witnessed in Germany as well with viewership significantly down. ESPN Bundesliga reporter Archie Rhind-Tutt shared German reports that claimed that viewership of the tournament is way down which suggested that the Qatar World Cup is averaging about 9 million viewers in Germany. This is 16 million less than the average viewership per match at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

At the same time, US interest in the World Cup is higher than ever. According to the publication, the World Cup game between the United States and England from November 25 scored 19.9 million viewers, the highest viewership for a football game ever recorded in the US.