the Paris saint-germain’s historic double in the champions league fell short of capturing the massive television audiences seen in previous finals. last season’s commanding 5-0 victory over inter milan drew an average of 11.5 million viewers, a benchmark that remained unmatched in saturday’s clash with arsenal.

while 6.2 million tuned into m6 for the final against arsenal, with a peak of 13.5 million during injury time, an additional 2.9 million viewers watched on canal+. this represents a drop of over 2 million compared to the previous year’s broadcast across the two channels combined.

the decline in viewership was largely attributed to a scheduling conflict with moïse kouamé’s third-round match at roland-garros, which kicked off just before the psg’s final.

3 million viewers for moïse kouamé’s roland-garros match

the clash between moïse kouamé’s roland-garros match and the psg’s champions league final presented viewers with a tough choice. the 17-year-old french tennis prospect began his match on the suzanne-lenglen court at 4:15 pm, leaving little time to catch the start of the football showdown at 6 pm. despite the overlap, kouamé still managed to draw 3 million viewers to his match, though numbers inevitably dipped as the psg’s final got underway.

“i caught the penalty shootout, which i think was the worst moment,” kouamé joked in his post-match press conference, sporting a psg jersey after his four-set loss to alexander tabillo (6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-7[9-11]). “it’s a small consolation for my defeat,” the teenager added with a smile, undeterred by his first-round exit.