The referee’s whistle to open the match between Qatar and Ecuador this Sunday (20) was the start of what proved to be the world’s greatest sporting event, surpassing Olympic and Super Bowl audiences by a wide margin.
FIFA hopes to widen that margin even further, estimating that 5 billion unique viewers will watch the Qatar Cup, surpassing the record 3.5 billion for the Russian edition in 2018, which was broadcast live to all regions on the planet.
Statista research institute did an analysis of the numbers and ambition is not unreasonable: four years ago, average live TV viewer of the cup matches gives Russia was 191 million. this brand It exceeds the number of viewers watching the Super Bowl by almost 30%, the second most watched global sporting event in 2022.
World Cup vs Super Bowl
Get the Super Bowl like this: to compare Reveals the extraordinary scale of the World Cup’s global appealHe shows Felix Richter, a data journalism expert at Statista.
An average of 191 million per game of the Russian Cup significantly bigger than the audience spherical Super Bowl TV from 2022.
This year’s Super Bowl is estimated to have a total viewership of 150 million, given 99.2 million viewers in the US and 30 to 50 million viewers in the rest of the world.
Richter reinforces that this comparison only considers the average recorded in each of the 64 games played in Russia.
If we consider the final between France and Croatia alone, the average TV viewership was 517 million, which is more than three times the Super Bowl audience.
Qatar Cup vs Olympic Audience
In terms of public access of the FIFA World Cup, Richter shows that football’s biggest event also impacts the summer or winter Olympics.
An estimated 3.56 billion people watched at least one minute of World Cup broadcasts in 2018. from Russia, on linear TV or digital channels????????
This is 17% more than the total viewership of the last Summer Olympics held in Tokyo in 2020, which attracted 3.05 billion viewers.
The comparison with the last Winter Olympics held in Beijing in 2022 is even more overwhelming. Russia’s event numbers are about 80% more than Beijing’s 2.01 billion spectators.
Richter points out that the 2014 Brazil Cup and the 2010 South African Cup are not far behind Russia’s figures, showing that football has established itself as a global game. It was followed around the world like no other sport.
It is not yet clear whether the controversial decision to host the World Cup in Qatar will affect the scope of the event with the weight of political and human rights issues.
Or whether the power of football will be demonstrated once again, whether a new all-time record for global sports viewership will be set, regardless of the level of the competition.
Also read | Brazil was named Sports Photographer of the Year in a global competition with a series about extreme sports.
source: Noticias
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.