It was a game that will live in the memory for a lifetime, and one that was watched by a peak of 1.03 million in Ireland as the game, the tournament and Lionel Messi’s legacy went to a dramatic penalty shoot out.

In Britain the number was 19.6 million with three quarters of those watching on the BBC.

An average of 780,000 watched  on RTÉ2 and there were another 478,000 live streams on the RTÉ Player.

Over the four-week period, record numbers tuned into over 200 hours of World Cup coverage across television, player and radio live from Qatar showcasing the best what football had to offer.

The road to the final saw huge audiences as Argentina’s semi-final victory over Croatia was the most-watched match on RTÉ2 which had an average audience of 784,000. England v France was in third overall place with a 760,000 average audience. The second semi-final between France v Morocco was the fourth biggest match on RTÉ2 scoring 632,000 viewing average.

In 2018 the World Cup took ten of the Top 50 spots in the TV viewing figures for the year.   In 2014 it took five of the Top 20. We will find out in January how 2022 compares.

8.5 million total streams was recorded across the tournament. This is an increase of 240 per cent on live streams of games at Euro 2020 which was played in the summer of 2021 only 18 months ago. It represents a 47 per cent increase on the World Cup tournament in 2018.

 


 
“The “Messi Mbappe” World Cup brought about audience engagement at unprecedented levels and is a tribute to the professionalism of those involved from presenters, pundits and production teams,” said Declan McBennett, Head of Sport at RTÉ.

“The comprehensive coverage of primarily a wonderful sporting tournament while addressing the backdrop of social and political issues was embraced by the audience and will live long in the memory.”

“We are thrilled with the performance of the FIFA World Cup on RTÉ Player, “added Head of the service Aoife Byrne.

“With a total of 8.5 million streams and 1.8 million unique devices, it has been a record-breaking tournament.”

“The epic final between Argentina and France had 478,000 live streams and was the most-streamed match of the tournament. Our focus over the past two years has been on investing in and improving the reliability and resilience of RTÉ Player and particularly our ability to scale to meet the rapidly increasing audiences we’re seeing, both live and on-demand. ”

“The user experience achieved during the World Cup where RTÉ Player delivered its highest concurrent audience ever demonstrates the effectiveness of these works.”