CBC’s broadcast of WWC final nets more than a million viewers

Even though the Canadian women were eliminated from contention after just two matches — and lost their third to add insult to injuries — soccer fans in this country didn’t tune out the Women’s World Cup after coach Carolina Morace’s crew went home. CBC reported Monday’s final, that saw Japan beat the United States in penalties after a 2-2 draw that saw the Japanese equalize late in regulation and then again in extra time, earned some very healthy ratings. The overnight ratings showed an average audience of 1.051 million. But, the match reached the 1.77 million viewer mark as Homare Sawa, the player of the tournament, redirected a corner kick to tie the game 2-2 and the Americans went on to shank penalty after penalty. BBM Canada’s numbers estimate that just under 3.2 million Canadians caught all or a portion of the game. Compare that to the Canada-Germany opener of the Women’s World Cup, which saw an average audience of 662,000 viewers. So, the Cinderella story that was the Japanese national teams captured the interest of Canadian fans — and, by the end of tournament, had created more interest than was shown in Canada’s preliminary-round matches. While the average audience is still significantly lower than the marquee matches at the 2010 World Cup, and can’t compare to, gulp, hockey, it is encouraging as Canada gets ready to host the world in 2015. If Canadian viewers are willing to watch games that don’t involve our national team on television — then it’s a great sign that seats will be filled in the venues that don’t have Canada on the pitch in 2015.