More than 2 million people in Finland tune in to the dramatic World Cup final | News
Argentina won their third World Cup by beating France 4-2 on penalties on Sunday night.
Yle TV2 was watched by 2.3 million Finns on Sunday evening to watch Argentina’s dramatic victory over France in the 2022 World Cup final.
In addition, the coverage of the game on Yle’s online services – including the streaming platform Yle Areena and Yle’s mobile app – gathered around 930,000 visitors.
“The FIFA World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world, and these viewing figures show how important it is to Finns as well”, Yle’s sports manager Joose Palonen said in response to the viewing figures.
Despite this, the finals remained popular with viewers pre-tournament controversies including the alleged exploitation of migrant workers hired to build stadiums, and the treatment of minority groups in Qatar.
“At the heart of the FIFA World Cup are spectacular, dramatic games, but there are always topics of discussion off the field as well. We offered the Finns in Qatar an exceptional tournament in all aspects,” Palonen added.
The viewing figures for the entire tournament broke new records at Yle Areena, as viewers watched a total of 5.1 million hours of football on the streaming service. This was particularly influenced by the age group under 45, where the number of spectators increased by 31 percent compared to the 2018 World Cup.
At the same time, a total of 3.4 million people watched matches and studio broadcasts on Yle’s TV channels during the tournament, according to figures from Finnpanel, which measures Finnish TV viewers.
This means an average of about 877,000 viewers per game.
In total, Yle broadcast 42 matches live from the World Cup in Qatar, while commercial MTV showed more than 20 matches from the tournament.
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