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FIFA World Cup Final n°1 favourite with TV sports fans in 2006

Initiative has published its 2006 ViewerTrack global trends report ranking the world’s most watched live, global TV sports events.  This has been produced by Initiative’s global sports consultancy division, recently launched under its own banner, Sports Futures.

The top 10 events hit parade, drawn from a preselected list of 15 events viewed worldwide, are chosen for both their sporting importance and commercial value.

This year’s league table shows that the 5 most popular events are pulling significantly ahead of the rest of the field in terms of global TV audience numbers.  The attraction for sponsors of these five most watched properties - from a brand exposure and media value perspective - grow ever stronger compared with all other sporting events.  Soccer in particular, the world’s most popular sport, is increasing its global domination. 

The five most watched events of 2006 in terms of live viewing – the FIFA World Cup Final, NFL Super Bowl, IOC Winter Olympics, UEFA European Champions League and the FIA Formula One World Championship - stand head and shoulders above the others.  Interestingly, while each of these five events shows signs of TV audience growth, less popular events are not only failing to keep up with them, some are even experiencing viewership decline.

Leading the field is the FIFA World Cup Final, which attracted more than double the global audience of any other sporting event in 2006.  The Italy vs.France match was watched by an average live global audience of 260 million people, with more than 600 million people tuning in to watch at least some part of the match.

In second place was the NFL Super Bowl, relinquishing its number one ranking from 2005.  The match between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks drew an average live global audience of 98 million in 2006, an increase on the 93 million who watched the Super Bowl last year.

The Opening Ceremony of the IOC Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, comes in at third place, drawing an average live global audience of 87 million.  However, when comparing total audience numbers as opposed to average, more people watched the Opening Ceremony than the NFL Super Bowl.  249 million people tuned in to snatch a glimpse of the Opening Ceremony at some point, compared with only 151 million for the Super Bowl.

Close behind in fourth and fifth places, respectively, was Barcelona vs. Arsenal in the UEFA European Champions League Final and the Brazilian Grand Prix.  They drew average live global audiences of 86 million and 83 million people, respectively.  The UEFA Champions League Final drew an average audience 10 per cent larger than in 2005, and the Brazilian Grand Prix was watched by 39 per cent more than last year’s most watched race, the Canadian Grand Prix.

All the other events included within the preselected list on which the report is based failed to draw an average global audience of more than 20 million people.  Many of these experienced year-on-year declines in viewing.

The attraction for sponsors of the five most watched properties - from a brand exposure and media value perspective - grow ever stronger compared with all other sporting events.

In particular, soccer, which has always been the world’s most popular sport, is increasing its global domination.  Viewing figures from this summer’s FIFA World Cup showed impressive audience numbers in all regions of the world, with the global average live audience for the tournament as a whole up by 14 per cent compared with the 2002 audience.  Soccer has traditionally been the most popular sport in Europe, South America and Africa, but over the last decade it has shown its strongest growth in North America and Asia-Pacific.

Thus soccer, in the form of the FIFA World Cup Final and UEFA Champions League Final, has a prominent position at the head of this year’s global viewing league table of most watched TV sporting events.  The simplicity of soccer’s rules, especially compared with some other sports which also have global aspirations, enables it to appeal to a very broad range of people.  One of the most notable features of the global audience profile for the 2006 FIFA World Cup was that more women than ever before watched the tournament.  Women accounted for 41 per cent of the global audience for the event.

The wide differences in the global popularity of the world’s most watched TV sporting events presents a major challenge to brands.  Sponsors wanting to guarantee the maximum amount of global exposure from associating themselves with live sport have only a relatively small number of properties to choose from.  With the amount of clutter already a major concern among sponsors, this presents a dilemma – more and more sponsors want to associate themselves with a handful of properties.  This is placing upward pressure on sponsorship fees, and requires brands to think of ever-more innovative ways to leverage their activity so as to make them stand out from the crowd.

Postcard from Italy!

Italy become World Champions for the fourth time

Italy beat France in a penalty-shoot out, lifting the trophy for the fourth time and becoming the second most successful team in the history of the FIFA World Cup, after Brazil.

24 million Italians tuned in to the match on Rai 1, with an audience share of 84%

Read the report from Initiative Milan on the viewing statistics for the Italy vs France match

Number of the day - 5th July

Initiative predicts the 2006 World Cup final will attract an average live programme audience of 300 million viewers globally.

How many people do you think will be watching?  Let us know by posting a comment!

India embraces World Cup fever

Viewing figures in parts of Asia are as much as 80 per cent down on 2002, thanks to unfavourable kick-off times and the somewhat disappointing display from the Asian teams in the tournament.  A far cry from Japan and South Korea 2002, when both host nations won their group.   

Despite this, however, one Asian market has managed to buck this trend completely: India.  Ratings in India are lower than other Asian markets, but viewing figures are growing.  The average live program audience in India is more than 50 per cent higher than in was for World Cup 2002.  This is an even faster rate of growth than in many of the major football markets around the world, such as the UK, France, Germany, Brazil and Argentina.

To outsiders, this may seem surprising.  India has never qualified for the World Cup and lie a lowly 118th in the FIFA World Rankings, nestled between Hong Kong and New Zealand.  Yet soccer is popular in the country: it is played regularly by young people, league soccer was played in India long before it was in Europe and in Calcutta's East Bengal and Mohan Bagan, India boasts one of the fiercest domestic soccer rivalries in the world.  Crowds of 130,000 for this match are not unheard of.

In this context, the popularity of World Cup 2006 seems a little less surprising.  The most popular game of the first 26 matches in India was the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica on ESPN, which enjoyed an average programme audience of 2 million individuals according to figures released by TAM.

Viewing figures for the evening games are lower due to time differences: they kick-off at 00:30 in India.  This also partly explains the reason for viewing figures for these matches dropping significantly in the second half of games.  On average, average audiences are 25% lower in the second half than the first.  This is unusual given viewing figures tend to rise for the second half of matches when the final result gets decided.

However, certain sectors of the population are burning the midnight oil and staying up to watch the entire matches.  More than 50% of the audiences watching the late night matches are 16-34 years old.  The late-night match with the highest viewing figures was Brazil vs. Croatia out of the first 26 matches of the tournament. 

Perhaps the only people who are less than pleased with the ‘World Cup Effect’ are the other TV channels in India.  The popularity of the tournament is highlighted by the decline in ratings of other non-soccer programming in the country.  Even the most popular general entertainment programmes and Hindi movies have seen ratings fall.

This is not just an issue in India.  Global audiences for Formula One, the World’s most watched annual sporting event, have dropped during the World Cup.  This year’s Canadian Grand Prix fell on the same day as the England vs. Ecuador and Portugal vs. Holland Second Round matches.  With many viewers choosing to watch the football, the global average audience for the Canadian Grand Prix fell by 20 per cent compared with the same race in 2005.

Postcard from Portugal!

Italians storm into the Final

Italy knocked out tournament hosts Germany in an absorbing match to reach the World   Cup 2006 final.  24 million Italians tuned in to see their team's victory live on Rai 1.

Read the report from Initiative Milan on the viewing statistics for the Germany vs Italy match

Brands hope for World Cup boost to stagnating Portuguese ad market

Portugal is currently enjoying its moment of glory in the World Cup, reaching the tournament semi-finals, something we only accomplished back in 1966!

In pure advertising terms the environment is far from favourable.  Both the economy and advertising spend have stagnated so within this context the World Cup potential is limited.  On top of that, for the sponsors such as Fuji, Mastercard, Hyundai, Yahoo etc, Portugal is not a relevant market and investment from them in the country is minimal.

However local sponsors of our national team are making a good noise around the tournament, with brands using football and the awareness/values of the World Cup as a trigger for their positioning and market strength.  Nevertheless, times are tough and in real investment terms, May was below last year's level and June is likely to follow.  Things were different back in Euro 2004: as Portugal was the tournament host, the investment trigger effect was far higher, helping to raise the ad market by 12% against the previous year.

This World Cup, in global terms, acts more as a "content" for brand communication and activation.   A good example was provided by Bes, a local bank institution and national team sponsor, that invested heavily in pushing football values, promoting events like the biggest and 'most beautiful' human national flag, all made by women, in an all-day event with music, DJs, etc.  This really helped to capture women's involvement in the tournament.

Looking forward to Berlin :-)

Mario Mateus, Initiative Lisbon

Number of the Day - 4th July

On average 31 per cent of Italians have watched Italy's World Cup matches (up to and including the quarter-finals).

How much more likely are you to watch your own team playing than another team?  Post a comment!

The Grass is Greener? TV fans still faithful to national heroes, but interest spreads to other teams

Not surprisingly, in countries that qualify for the World Cup, local TV viewing peaks when the national team plays a match.  In the Group Stage of the 2002 World Cup, in countries that qualified, audiences were 196 per cent higher for matches played by their home team, compared with matches where they did not play.  However, in 2006, Initiative's most recent ViewerTrack reveals that World Cup fans are taking more interest in all matches in the tournament, not just the ones where their home teams are playing.

Overall interest in the Group Stage of World Cup 2006 has grown compared with that in World Cup 2002.  Higher global audience figures have been driven by more favourable scheduling across key European and South American soccer markets than when it was hosted by Japan and South Korea four years ago.  However, in countries which qualified for both tournaments, audiences have grown significantly for matches not involving their national sides.

In fact, for the 16 countries that qualified for both World Cup 2006 and 2002 for which we currently have data, the average audience watching all 48 Group matches rose by 16 per cent.  Average audiences supporting home team matches increased by 7 per cent.  That's to say, audiences for Group matches in which their home team did not play, rose twice as fast as those where they did play.

This means that while audiences for home team matches still outstrip other teams' matches, the gap is narrowing.  In the same 16 countries, audiences for home team matches in the Group Stage of World Cup 2006 were 174 per cent higher than the average audience over all 48 Group matches, compared with the 196 per cent difference in 2002.

This is good new for advertisers, sponsors and broadcasters since with broader audience interest across all teams, they can continue to draw large TV audiences for World Cup matches even when a nation is not watching in support of its home team.

The uplift in viewing for a country's national team is smallest in the USA.  While in most countries audiences more than double to support their home team, audiences for games involving the US team only jumped on average by 52 per cent.  The USA is the only country in the world where its own country's matches are not the most watched.  Brazil, Italy and Mexico's matches all drew larger average audiences in the US during the Group stage than the USA's own games.

Number of the Day - 3rd July

World Cup 2006 TV audiences increase by 174 per cent when a country's national team plays.

How much more likely are you to watch when your national team is playing than otherwise?  Post a comment and let us know!

Italy go marching on

Italy set up a mouth watering semi-final against Germany with a convincing 3-0 victory against Ukraine in Dortmund on Friday, 30 June 2006.  21m fans tuned in to watch the Monday afternoon match, giving Rai 1 a 75% share.

Read the report from Initiative Milan on the viewing statistics for the Italy vs Ukraine match

Postcard from Ireland!

Would you recognise one of these if you saw it?

For those of you unfamiliar with the London office it is located next door to the National Passport Office, conveniently placed opposite our fourth meeting room – a.k.a The George Tavern.

Last night, myself and some colleagues were in the above mentioned meeting room discussing the finer points of the England teams’ tactics when we were joined by a good looking young man.

He was wasting some time whilst waiting for his new passport to be issued.  Aged 23, ‘Dave’ is from the East End of London, supports West Ham and is a Financial Advisor.  He was naturally very excited because the reason he was getting his passport renewed was because he is off to Germany to see the World Cup!

Unfortunately he had to pay a premium for his passport because it came with something that most passports don’t have – a hooligan chip!  Yes, our new best friend ‘Dave’ is a convicted England hooligan.

So, if when you’re watching the football on television, you spot a respectable looking, well groomed young man with a pint of lager in his hand – give him a wave – it could be Dave.

Steph Black, Nicky Williams and Jody Louie, Initiative London

World Cup 2006 more popular than World Cup 2002, but audience growth is slowing as the tournament progresses

The Group Stage can be fraught with tension with teams desperate not to go home so soon after arriving at the World Cup.  All teams play three matches, once against each of the other teams in their group.  Only the top two teams in each group qualify for the next round, with the other two catching an early flight home.

While the players want easy victories, fans prefer to see tightly fought, competitive soccer with lots of goals.  The degree of competitive balance between the teams helps to explain global viewing trends during the Group Stage.

Overall, viewing for live and time-shifted broadcasts of the 48 matches during the Group Stage across 38 markets was up 8 per cent for World Cup 2006 compared with World Cup 2002.  However, the rate of audience growth varied significantly between the first, second and third sets of group matches.

During the first sixteen games, average audiences were up by 20 per cent, with audience growth fastest in key soccer markets in Europe and South America.  Viewing rose fastest there because matches were broadcast at much more convenient times of day than during World Cup 2002 in Japan / Korea.

While time zones have been a positive effect on global viewing, growing differences between the performances of the best and worst teams has lowered TV audiences.  In 2006, eight teams were so dominant in their group that they had already qualified for the second round after winning their first two matches.  In 2002, only two teams were in that position after the first two games.

The lower number of goals scored has also had a negative effect on audience figures.  Only 117 goals were scored in the Group Stage in World Cup 2006, 10 per cent less than the 130 goals at the equivalent stage of World Cup 2002.

As a result, the rate of audience growth in World Cup 2006 has slowed as the tournament has progressed, with the 3rd Group matches attracting average audiences 3 per cent lower than at the equivalent stage of World Cup 2002.

However, with many of the favorites making it through to the knockout stages of World Cup 2006, the global average audience is set to rise again during the remainder of the tournament.