2024-07-06 22:59:38
On Friday, Germany lost to Spain in the European Championship quarter-finals. A bitter blow for the national team – but a complete success in terms of ratings.
The quarter-final between Germany and Spain could not have been more exciting: After the Spanish team had been leading until shortly before the end of the game, Florian Wirtz scored the equalizer in the 89th minute – the game went into extra time. Shortly before the end of the extra time, however, Mikel Merino scored to make it 2:1, thus eliminating Germany. Not only were there numerous fans in the stadium cheering, countless people also watched in front of their home screens – more than 26 million to be exact.
As the magazine “DWDL.de” reports, an average of 26.13 million people watched the football match on ARD. This does not even include the people who saw the spectacle at public viewings or in sports bars. The quarter-finals thus achieved a market share of 80.9 percent, and among 14- to 49-year-olds it was even 89.7 percent. This is the highest share in ten years, it is said.
The last time such high ratings were achieved was when Germany played against Argentina in 2014 and became world champions. At that time, 90.1 percent of 14- to 49-year-olds watched.
After the game, however, the ratings dropped rapidly, with only 4.19 million people watching the “Tagesschau”. This was probably because the quarter-final between France and Portugal was being broadcast on ZDF at the time, while 10.35 million people watched the game on ZDF.
The match ended unluckily for Portugal, with Cristiano Ronaldo’s team being knocked out after a penalty shootout. Accordingly, the two winners of the day, France and Spain, will meet on Tuesday, July 9, at 9 p.m.