Maybe you missed the 2022 world cup, finally got into soccer this year, or are dying to see what all the female teams can do on the soccer field. No matter your reason, you want to watch the FIFA Women’s World Cup hosted jointly by Australia & New Zealand in 2023.
This article is going to tell you how to do that.
Even though it is a couple of months away, there’s plenty of action to keep women’s soccer fans busy. It is important that you know how to watch the FIFA Women’s World Cup before 2023 rolls around… because you don’t want to miss it!
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How To Watch The Women’s World Cup in 2023
From July to August, 32 teams from 32 countries, made up of the world’s best women’s soccer players, will square off until only one team remains the champion. Who wouldn’t want to watch that? Well, exactly how you will watch the game depends on your location, as different channels and networks will be showcasing the entire event in different countries.
If you are watching in Australia or New Zealand and don’t have the luxury of being at your favorite game live and in the stadium, you have options to watch all 64 matches on the television.
Australian viewers can watch all 64 games on:
- SBS
- Optus Sports
While viewers in New Zealand can watch on:
- The TVNZ network
- Sky Sports
For those soccer fans in the USA, the network FOX will show all the English-language broadcasts of the games. While the network Telemundo Deportes will show the Spanish language broadcasts.
Just make sure that you have the time zones in order, although most of the time, overseas games will be rebroadcast if they are played live in the middle of the night… just make sure to stay off the internet, so you aren’t spoiled!
Finally, the Women’s World Cup will be shown by two networks in the U.K. BBC and ITV will be sharing the coverage, so make sure to check which games are shown on which channel at what time! You don’t want to miss anything!
Can I Stream The Women’s World Cup?
Yes! There are also several sports-based streaming services that will show the Women’s World Cup, such as:
- FuboTV
- ESPN Plus
- Paramount Plus
- And others
If you live elsewhere or have these streaming services, take a look and see what your options are.
However, unless you really want to stream the Women’s World Cup, you shouldn’t need to. Especially in the U.S., the Women’s World Cup is going to be on public channels that you don’t need a streaming service to access, just an antenna. Still, some of the streaming services might show different shows and content around the games, including pre and post-game analysis, which you might not find anywhere else.
What Is The Schedule For The World Cup?
64 matches will be played, and the first two games will start on Thursday, July 20th, 2023. New Zealand and Norway will play first, followed by Australia vs. The Republic of Ireland. The rest of the matched teams will play one another until August 3rd on schedule, and after that, the winners of the various games will be pitted against one another until only one team remains. The Women’s World Cup final game will take place on August 20th, 2023.
Make sure to analyze the schedule (and especially the time zones!) if you want to follow a specific team all the way through the tournament, especially if they start climbing the bracket and winning several games in a row. Even if your selected team doesn’t make it all the way, it can still be fun watching the matches and predicting what will happen when certain teams clash.
What Teams Should You Look Out For?
While some fans keep tabs on their country’s games, others look more in-depth at stats and player reports. There are several other fans who just sit and wonder who they should be cheering for.
The United States of America is going to be the two-time defending champion, and they are going to be clashing with England. England is the European champion, but the U.S. Women’s National Team is looking to become the first time in either the men’s or women’s game to win three successive world cups, trying to keep their victories in 2015 and 2019 going!
Other amazing matchups include Australia and The Republic of Ireland, New Zealand and Norway, and France vs. Brazil. And, of course, the later matches will get even more intense as the tournament goes on!
And if all else fails, just pick a team, start cheering, and then see what happens as the Women’s World Cup goes on! Sometimes things can surprise you!
How Do You Watch And Understand The Women’s World Cup?
One of the biggest problems with watching the World Cup, especially as a beginner, is that the action moves very fast! It’s not like football or baseball, where the action moves pretty slowly, and you can tell what is happening easily. Or like tennis, where you can keep your eye on the ball and get an idea of what is going on.
Soccer can seem like the ball constantly moving back and forth, the time constantly ticking with no timeouts, and the games aren’t often that exciting score-wise. So how do you start getting into soccer with the Women’s World Cup?
First, you need to understand the rules. Soccer is pretty simple, where no one but the goalkeeper can use their hands to touch the ball. Soccer players can use any other part of their body and kick the ball into the goal, and whoever has the most goals at the end of the time wins. Now that you know the rules, watch a few games and see what questions you have.
If you notice that players keep getting yellow cards for some reason, then look at what yellow cards mean and why they occur. The more games you watch, the more questions you are going to have and the more you are going to learn.
Additionally, as the Women’s World Cup comes along, start to watch the analysis of the games and shows about soccer. Names are going to be dropped by the people who are analyzing each team and the various games, and you can start to research the names and stats around the team you like.
Pretty soon you will learn who the team leaders are, who the star kickers are, and what team members you really don’t want to see on the injury list because they carry the team! It can be a lot of fun to learn the game and look at the numbers and the stats behind each team, and then make predictions to see what will happen during the Women’s World Cup.
Just keep watching and keep at it. You will be a soccer master in no time at all!
Who Hosted The Women’s World Cup Before? Why Are There Co-Hosts Now?
This is the ninth world cup, and it has been hosted by six countries.
The following countries have all hosted the tournament once.
- Canada
- France
- Germany
- Sweden
These countries have hosted it twice:
- China
- The United States
However, this year there is not just one hosting country, but two. Australia and New Zealand submitted a joint bid, stating that they would use 13 stadiums in 12 cities, with five in New Zealand and seven in Australia.
They didn’t have much competition, only facing a competing bid from the country of Colombia, but they managed to win the vote with the highest score. The bidding works by each time putting out a report that says why they would be the best country to host the Women’s World Cup for that year. The report includes how they plan to support the Women’s World Cup and all that goes into the festival.
Then a committee goes in and takes a look at the report and the country to see if they can handle the responsibility of the Women’s World Cup. Once this is done, and the finalist countries are collected, voting is done to pick the best bid. It is actually a very interesting process and might be something you can keep an eye on the next time the Women’s World Cup comes along.
What Is Different About The Women’s World Cup This Year?
There are a few changes that have been made to the 2023 world cup when it is compared to the previous Women’s World Cup events. For starters, the prize money has increased from the 2019 grand prize of $4 million, and 32 teams were allowed to qualify instead of the 24 teams that were allowed to qualify the previous year.
Not only does this bring the Women’s World Cup to the same team numbers as the Men’s World Cup, but it also gives the viewers more games to watch!
How Are The Matches Chosen?
As the viewers pour over the schedule and figure out what teams will play who and how the brackets for the game will work and will eventually lead to a champion, they might wonder how the first 32 pairs for the first 32 games got selected in the first place.
Well, every single team, with the exception of Australia and New Zealand as the two host nations, needed to qualify for the Women’s World Cup.
Once the teams qualified, they were ranked using the 2022 FIFA Women’s World Rankings, and each of the teams was placed into one of four pots to form a group of eight. The six highest-ranking teams joined Australia and New Zealand in the first pot.
Then the next eight best-ranked teams were placed into pot two, the next best placed into pot three, and the final pot consisted of the lowest-ranked teams in the tournament, along with three placeholders for the confederation playoff winners.
Then the eight groups were formed by selecting one team from each of the four pots, with New Zealand and Australia being the first two picks. Each of the groups will play one another, and then the winners of the two games in each group will continue playing up the bracket.
What Do I Do If I Want World Cup Tickets?
Whether you are a native of Australia or New Zealand, or just love to see the crowds and the game in person, you can try to get yourself tickets to one or several of the matches going on in the Women’s World Cup. As of this article, there are only ticket package options, which are either stadium-specific passes or team passes.
The ticket packages started on October 6th, 2022, and they are already starting to get sold out! Some of the biggest head-to-head matches are already sold out, and everyone is buying. Especially since the tickets are going at lower prices, starting at AUD/NZD 40 for adults, and AUD/NZD 20 for children.
So try to look for your tickets. If you can’t find the games that you want live, at least you know where to watch them on your television. Plus, despite the fun of the game and the crowds all cheering for the same team, at home, you’ve got air conditioning and a fridge!
How To Make Watching The Women’s World Cup Fun
Now that you know where you can watch the Women’s World Cup, what are you going to do with your scheduled games? While there are plenty of games that you can have on in the background or that you can watch without too much fanfare, every sports tournament has the game(s) where everyone seems to be glued to their T.V.s and watching all at the same time.
Make an event out of games where it looks like the underdog team is going to win or games where it is just goal after goal after goal. You need to make watching the Women’s World Cup fun!
So make sure that you’ve got all the food and drinks prepared beforehand, and make sure your television is tuned to the correct channel and the batteries are in the remote! Additionally, decorate your home and put up some flags of the country you want to win! You can even coordinate your wardrobes to wear the colors of your team.
But one key thing you can do to make watching the Women’s World Cup as fun as possible is to have two dedicated spaces in your home. One for watching and another for socializing and talking together. There’s nothing more annoying than having a room filled with dedicated fans and then a few people who just want to talk and socialize.
Being able to have people who might not be fully into the game in their own space can help make the experience more fun for everyone!
Start Preparing To Watch The Games Now
Alright, people are procrastinators, especially since the games are a few months away at the time this article is being written! While it might seem like a good idea to wait until June to start getting into the world of the Women’s World Cup in July and August, start getting involved now!
Write down the schedule because you know who is going to play who and when the event is going to start and end. You can also start diving deep into the team you really want to follow through the Women’s World Cup because a lot can happen between now and the game. You don’t want to feel snug thinking your team is going to win, only for a problem due to injury, illness, or a world event to change everything.
Additionally, start watching games right now and see what your team can do. Figure out who your star players are, what they can do, and also who the rivals of your team are. After all, at some point during the Women’s World Cup, there will be a rivalry game. Whether you like the teams or not, you should be keeping an eye on the rivalry games because those will always be explosive.
Sit Down And Start Watching!
Whether you are sitting down at a massive watch party filled with food and cheering fans, or just have a cold drink and a desire to get comfy and watch your team score, you can watch the Women’s World Cup in 2023 no matter where you are. Just make sure you have the schedule and the time zone changes all put together, and then turn on the television and watch your team go to glory!
