POSTED: June 27th 2011
NewsUpdate
FIFA Women's World Cup opens to sell out audience in Berlin
LAURA WALDEN / Sports Features Communications
TAMPA/MUNICH, Jun 27: The FIFA Women’s World Cup opened last night to a sellout record audience and smashing TV viewers to watch host country Germany win 2-1 over Canada. The final is also sold out and promises lots of crowd atmosphere for the event.
Germany’s Head of State, President Christian Wulff, and Chancellor Angela Merkel were there to cheer on the national team. Wulff will travel to Durban to support the Munich 2018 bid with the vote in just 9 days on July 6th.
Berlin’s Olympiastadion opened to a European record crowd of 74,000 and television viewership also broke records with 14.1 million people, a 58% market share, tuning in to watch the event get started. Already 80% of the tickets, around 700,000, have been sold for the 32 matches on the program.
FIFA has surveyed that 86% of the population plan to tune in at some time to catch the Cup matches.
Bid chair and double gold Olympic skating champion, Katarina Witt, said, “Women’s football has a strong base here in Germany, so the organisers can guarantee passionate crowds, an incredible TV spectacle and, fingers crossed, a great performance from the home team – just what athletes, fans and sponsors want.
“And because we have that strong base, the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Germany will be an excellent platform for raising the profile of women’s football all over the world and inspiring a generation of young athletes to play and stay in sport.
“Munich 2018’s Festival of Friendship will have exactly the same energising effect on every sport on the Winter Games programme. An Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Germany would revitalise the worldwide winter sports movement, with an unforgettable sporting spectacle, unprecedented commercial revenues and greater global exposure than ever before.”
Steffi Jones, head of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 organising committee, says, “It would be great to have the Olympic and Paralympic Games back in Germany after such a long time. Knowing Germany's passion for sports and its enthusiastic fans, one can imagine what a fantastic event Germany could offer to the athletes and the Olympic Movement.”
Bid ceo, Bernhard Schwank, added, “The athlete has been at the heart of every single planning decision we have made. We’ve been able to put together a uniquely athlete-friendly concept because we have been in constant consultation with our 125 sports ambassadors, and because Germany has such enormous experience in hosting sports mega-events – we really know all the little things that make a big difference to an athlete’s experience.
“The FIFA Women’s World Cup is the latest in a long, illustrious list of international competitions in Germany, and we’ve worked hard to incorporate the lessons we’ve learned from every single one of them.”
Hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup is a platform for the country’s support for high level sports events as the Munich 2018 bid travels to Togo for the ANOCA general assembly presentation which is right before the Durban IOC session. Annecy and PyeongChang are running against Munich in this bid campaign.
The IOC will vote on July 6th in 8 days for the host city of the 2018 Olympics and Paralympics.
Keywords · Munich 2018 · FIFA Women's World Cup · Berlin · Katarina Witt · Bernhard Schwank · Steffi Jones · soccer
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