The German national soccer team’s first game at the controversial World Cup in Qatar drew an average of less than ten million viewers to the television sets. In the 2-1 defeat against Japan early on Wednesday afternoon, 9.230 million viewers tuned in to ARD, as AGF video research calculated on Thursday. This resulted in a market share of 59.7 percent.
At the World Cup four years ago in Russia, Erste and ZDF each reached an average of more than 25 million people in the three group games of the DFB team, the market shares were between 76.3 and 87.4 percent.
The other games on Wednesday without German participation remained well below the five million mark. The evening game between Belgium and Canada (1-0) attracted only 4,333 spectators (16.8 percent). The game of the two German group opponents Spain and Costa Rica (7:0) even stayed under four million with 3.890 million people (21.9 percent).
This continued the negative trend from the first three days of the controversial World Cup in the desert state. ZDF broadcast from Qatar on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The interest is significantly lower than at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. The average of the preliminary round games four years ago was over nine million on ARD and ZDF broadcasts.
