Over 100m World Cup streams for iPlayer and BBC Sport

The World Cup was streamed a record-breaking 104.7 million times on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport. 

The BBC also had a TV reach of 38.8 million, and 52.8 million unique browsers visiting BBC Sport’s World Cup website. 

A peak of 14.9 million tuned into BBC1 to watch Argentina win the World Cup on Sunday, with another 7.1 million streams on iPlayer and BBC Sport. BBC1 had an audience share of 58%, with a peak of 4.5 million choosing the watch the game on ITV.

The BBC has drawn large audiences thoughout the World Cup, including 18.7 watching England’s defeat of Wales in the group stages on all platforms. ITV had the rights to both of England’s knockout games, attracting the biggest audiences of the tournament to date with 20.4 million seeing England beat Senegal in the last 16 and 23 million watching the defeat to France in the quarter-finals. 10 million watched the semi-final between France and Morocco on BBC1, with another 3.8 million streaming.

Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport, said: “One of the greatest World Cup Finals of all time, Argentina and Messi’s victory last night closed off a thrilling four weeks of football. A first ever winter World Cup was a new experience for fans and the BBC has once again demonstrated the value of sport when made freely available to all, breaking new streaming records and providing the highest quality coverage, analysis and entertainment across TV, BBC iPlayer, BBC Sport Online and BBC Sounds.”