Vietnamese among biggest TV audiences of Asian Cup group stage

By Minh Minh February 2, 2024 | 10:42 pm PT

Vietnam football fans appear on a large TV screen that shows Asian Cup 2023 games live in Qatar. Photo by AFC

Television viewership for the 2023 Asian Cup group stage was up 14% from the previous edition in 2019, with Vietnam being one of the best performing markets.

The Asian Football Confederation said the viewership in Vietnam exceeded 200 million, 84% more than last time.

South Korea saw a 51% to more than 65 million.

Indonesia returned to the tournament for the first time since 2007 and had 154 million viewers.

The 18th edition of the Asian Cup saw all group matches broadcast live globally for the first time, and so the AFC had indeed expected record viewership.

Besides, more than one million fans thronged the stadiums during the round of 16, breaking the 2004 record of 937,650, also in Qatar.

Vietnam were eliminated in the group stage after losing all three matches, 2-4 to Japan, 0-1 to Indonesia and 2-3 to Iraq.

Somewhat surprisingly considering their rankings this was the first time Vietnam ended their run in the group stage after entering the quarterfinals in 2007 and 2019.

In 2019, when Vietnam lost 0-3 to Japan in the quarterfinals, the tournament had a TV viewership of 733 million.

So far this year, with the tournament reaching the quarterfinal stage, the number has been more than 64 million.