Euro 2022 final: Lionesses dominated on the pitch and on social

England came top of the social game as the most talked about team, with 26% of the tournament’s tweets coming from UK accounts, partly thanks to BBC push.

by Lucy Shelley 01 August 2022

The tournament closed last night with an impressive win from England’s Lionesses and the social stats are in.

Viewing figures have increased by 58% from the 2017 tournament held in the Netherlands, and this isn’t just due to the winning performance put on by the Lionesses, but to the BBC’s pledge to extensive coverage by broadcasting every game on one of its two main channels.

Sprout Social has analysed social media posts for the Women’s Euros 2022 tournament to determine what the driving force is behind the nation’s positive reaction to the tournament.

Tweets from the tournament have generated more than 11 billion impressions in the past week alone and have an 84% positive sentiment rate.

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— Specsavers (@Specsavers) August 1, 2022

Tweets reveal a strong link with the broadcasting decision: of the 510,913 Twitter mentions about Women’s Euros in the last week (24/07/2022-01/08/2022), over 57,000 mention England and over 27,000 were in relation to the BBC.

The increase in engagement can also be attributed to being hosted on English soil and an abundance of high-profile sponsors.

The UK dominated the online conversation: 26% of tweets about the tournament were from UK based accounts – significantly higher than Germany (3%) as the next highest.

England’s Lionesses have been dominating the conversation with 17% of the tweets about the Women’s Euros using the Lionesses hashtag, and Germany’s Die Nationalelf second with 7% of the tweets. Next in the rankings were France’s Les Bleues and Sweden’s Women’s National Football Team.

Cat Anderson, Head of Marketing at Sprout Social, said: ‘It’s been amazing to see the BBC and viewers from across the UK embrace women’s football in this way – certainly giving it the attention and recognition it deserves. What also stands out to me is the role broadcasting and social media have played in helping amplify the buzz around the tournament and engaging audiences across the world. I believe we will continue to see the long-term impacts of this even after the tournament finishes as social media has been successful in engaging a new generation of football fans.’’

Our magnificent #Lionesses with pride of place on our Intercity Express Train 800316 #WEURO2022 #Itscominghome pic.twitter.com/jOUtLaoLwQ
— GWR (@GWRHelp) August 1, 2022