Even today, some broadcasters are unable or unwilling to finance the rights to broadcast the event, thus depriving millions of spectators of the event. France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom, all historic footballing hotspots, are among the absentees. This is all the more astonishing given that 157 countries out of the 211 FIFA federations will benefit from broadcasting the 64 matches of the competition.
At a time when the 2022 World Cup in Qatar brought together more than half of humanity, with record audiences and revenues despite the scale of the criticism, the question of broadcasting the Women’s World Cup seems incongruous.