There's no debate: as a standalone tournament, the Women's World Cup is a rip-roaring, commercially viable success. The 2019 edition broke women's football viewing records around the world. This happened not only in Europe, where the time zones were friendly and new marks were set in France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom, but also in the United States and Brazil. In fact, according to FIFA, Brazil set a new global viewing record when 35 million watched the Selecao take on France in the Round of 16.
And it's not as if this audience was simply football junkies getting their fix at the end of the European season because there was nothing else on.