World Cup Ratings
Photo Source: prismatico
The ratings are in for the 2010 World Cup, and to no one’s surprise broadcasters worldwide killed it. For the championship game FIFA estimates some 700 million watched some part of the game. As usual the two teams vying for the cup had absurd viewership. Spain had 15.6 million, or 86% of the viewing audience, tune into their three channels that broadcasted the championship live. Similarly, in the Netherlands 8.5 million or 91% of the viewing audience caught the game.
Reuters went on to describe the ratings for the final game in Europe:
“Certainly the game proved a ratings winner across Europe, with 25.1 million Germans, 71% of the audience, watching on ZDF; 18.4 million, or 66 perfect, of Brits catching the game, which was simulcast across BBC1, BBCHD, ITV1 and ITVH; 13.5 million viewers (63.46 perfect) watched on RAI in Italy and 14.1 million French viewers tuning in on TF1 (a 63 perfect share). TF1 and RAI’s results were the best-ever ratings for a soccer game not featuring the national sides.”
Broadcasters in America, despite not having a dog in the fight, also did well. The World Cup Final game became the most watched soccer game in U.S. history when, according to Nielson, 24.3 million people tuned in. ABC drew 15.45 million viewers and Univision drew 8.821 million. Although the final game was broadcast on a summer Sunday, in the middle of the day, the combined audience still drew more viewers than any Major League Baseball game since 2004, and every single college basketball game since 1999.
While all of the above data only reflect TV ratings, the event was broadcast over multiple platforms online. While many of the numbers are not yet tallied, Univisionfutbol.com has compiled their numbers for the entire tournament. They generated 34.7 million visits across online and mobile offerings. Fans streamed over 10 million hours of live video on Univisionfutbol.com, spending an average of 1 hour and 30 minutes per viewing session each day. Proving once and for all that free access to content through multiple platforms builds brands and doesn’t restrict an ability to turn a profit.