Football in Estonia is one of the most popular ballgames, right next to basketball, but ratings of the World Cup games have been relatively low so far, around 4 - 6%. Although the Estonian football team is quite far from qualifying for the World Cup and cross-country skiing is still the most watched sporting event on TV, hopes were high for Brazil vs. Croatia to attract the largest World Cup audience in Estonia so far.
The match started at exactly the same time as the hugely popular metal band Metallica came on stage at Tallinn Song Festival Ground and nearly 80 000 fans raised their hands to welcome them. Many believed that the gigantic open-air concert would distract some of the football fans and keep them away from the TV. Luckily enough, it seemed that there were enough people for both events. Football appeared somewhat more popular – 117 000 viewers of Brazil vs. Croatia match compared with 80 000 Metallica fans. To be honest, lots of fans (an estimation of 30 000) had also come from the neighbouring countries, as this was the only concert Metallica had in Eastern and Northern Europe. On the other hand, tickets to Metallica’s concert were limited and the concert was sold out.
The most popular sporting event in 2006 in Estonia was women’s 30km cross-country skiing event on Torino Winter Olympics, with a rating of 25.4%. About 330 000 people were watching it – Estonia is a small country with only around 1.3 million people. The extraordinarily high ratings were only natural in this case, as Estonians won many medals in Torino and patriotic feelings were high.
All major sports events (like Olympic Games, World Championships, etc.) as well as The World Cup in Football are broadcast on ETV, the national channel without commercial advertising. Therefore, although a major attraction to advertisers, there is no possibility to use those broadcasts for ordinary advertising.
Ukraine "deserved to win against Saudi Arabia by a 4.75 Goal margin of victory" or +0.75 Goal more than the actul Score Line. Once again despite having Graham Poll and an English team of Match Officials there were errors shown up by the immediate SloMo Replays to be wrong.
However it was the feature about so many "Spectators" watching these games on Big Screens in City Centres which got me thinking just how these affect the Official Viewing Figures ? And of course showing up the nonsense of so few Official Tickets being released for Fans willing to spend the time and money to travel to each Venue. As opposed to those issued both to Association not good enough to qualify their National Team and to Corporate Sponsors too often with logical reason for paying to associate their Brand with the world popularity of such Elite Football ?
Posted by: Bob Copeman | 19 June 2006 at 07:27 PM