England’s Euro 2020 semi-final match against Denmark broke a new record for peak football viewership in the UK.
The football team won last night’s (7 July) fixture after extra time, progressing through to the final against Italy, which will take place on Sunday 11 July.
ITV Sport presenter Mark Pougatch announced the news on Twitter, revealing that the match had been watched by a peak audience of 27.6 million people across both ITV and ITV Hub.
This is described as the highest peak audience ever for a football fixture for a single channel.
“Confirmed TV figures just in for England v Denmark last night: A peak of 26.3 million & including Hub non-TV devices the peak increases to 27.6 million, making it the biggest peak football audience ever for a single channel. Thank you for being there,” he wrote.
Euro 2020 is now the first time England has qualified for a major international final since the World Cup in 1966, from which the nation emerged victorious.
David Baddiel, the comedian whose 1996 pop hit “Three Lions” (recorded with Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds) has been repopularised during the tournament, has claimed that reaching the final qualifies as success in and of itself.
“People are saying to me, ‘Has it come home? Is it coming home?’” Baddiel told BBC Radio 4. “Obviously, that happens to me a lot.”
“And a tiny part of me wants to say, ‘Well, it has already come home. It has already to some extent just by being in the final’.”
