England’s inaugural game of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, where the Three Lions thrashed Iran 6-2, gathered massive viewership on the BBC. The game was streamed a record eight million times on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport online, which made it the most live-streamed event on the BBC over a 24-hour period.
The fixture where the British football team outplayed the Iranians also witnessed a peak TV audience of 8.1 million and over 70% of the share of available viewers.
The inaugural fixture of the ongoing multi-team football tournament, Qatar vs Ecuador, garnered a peak audience of 7.9m on BBC One. The first game of the 2018 edition between Peru and Denmark, which commenced at the same time experienced a peak audience of 6.6m on the BBC.
The most awaited event of the year, Qatar World Cup 2022, is off to an exciting and unpredictable start as Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia even after acquiring an early lead.
Three fixtures are lined up for today, Morocco vs Croatia, Germany vs Japan and Spain vs Costa Rica. The aforementioned games can be viewed on BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Sounds and BBC Sport online.