Women's World Cup: France favorites, interest statistics favor men

June 5 (UPI) -- France is the favorite to win the 2019 Women's World Cup, according to simulations performed by the Nielsen company Gracenote.

The company gives the host country a 22 percent chance of victory. The United States Women's National Team has a 14 percent chance of winning. Germany (12 percent), England (11 percent) and Australia (7 percent) are among the top-five favorites.

Gracenote used ratings from the FIFA women's world rankings to estimate the percentage chance of each match being won, drawn or lost. Those percentages were put into a simulation for the full competition, which ran 1 million times to produce the estimates.

The U.S. Women's National Team is No. 1 in the FIFA world rankings, followed by Germany, England, France and Canada in the top-five.

"FIFA Women's World Cup host nation France are ranked fourth in the world but home advantage makes them the favorite to win the competition ahead of the United States, Germany and England," said Simon Gleave, head of sports analysis at Gracenote.

"However, we know that anything can happen in a tournament like this so watch out for Australia and Canada, as well as European Champions the Netherlands for solid runs in this year's competition."

The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup begins Friday, with the final set for July 7 in Lyon.

Nielsen also reports that interest in women's soccer is at 40 percent of the population in the countries competing in the tournament. Of the 24 countries surveyed, 314 million people are interested in women's soccer.

More than half of the women's soccer fans around the world are men (54 percent) and 46 percent of the fans are women. Women under age 45 make up 63 percent of women's soccer fans.

The Netherlands is the most gender equal nation when it comes to interest in the World Cup, with 50 percent of their fan base interested in both men's and women's soccer.

Prize money has also doubled since the U.S. team won the 2015 World Cup. This year the field is competing for $30 million, while the total purse was $15 million in 2015.

The U.S. and France are set to meet in the quarterfinals if both teams win their groups.