The FIVB Women’s Volleyball World Championship 2025 – the first under its new biennial cycle and expanded 32-team format – has marked a breakthrough moment for the sport, with unprecedented audiences across three of volleyball’s most important markets: China, Italy and Türkiye.
In China, volleyball reached historic heights with more than 1.1 billion views across broadcast and digital platforms.
- Over 500 million fans tuned in on CCTV5 during prime-time coverage, outperforming other major events such as the Basketball Men’s Asian Cup (370 million) and the Table Tennis WTT Yokohama (230 million).
- For the first time in the sport’s history, Volleyball World also partnered with 20 Douyin streamers, including former Chinese international stars, to bring the tournament directly to fans. This activation delivered 638 million additional views, reached over 140 million unique viewers, and sparked nearly 31 million interactions, setting a new benchmark for sports engagement in China.
In Europe, Italy’s gold medal showdown with Türkiye captivated nearly 4 million viewers on RAI 1, representing 33% of the viewer population at the time.
- Excluding football, this was the country’s fourth-largest live sports audience of 2025, narrowly behind the Wimbledon final featuring Jannik Sinner.
- Volleyball also dominated the Italian sports broadcast charts in August, claiming the top three positions ahead of basketball, athletics and motorsports.
