No other sporting event draws as many viewers as the FIFA World Cup; billions tune in each year.
Which countries and viewers watch most closely and where do these viewers live? Altman Solon provides answers to this and more in our 2022 FIFA World Cup Perspectives report.
France
Football fans from around the globe have flocked to watch this year’s World Cup, with FIFA estimating that an estimated 572 million viewers watched France versus Argentina compete at Lusail Stadium for glory on June 14.
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe stole the show at France’s leading broadcaster TF1, breaking their record viewership of 24.15 million with peaking viewership reaching 29.4 million.
In the UK, the game drew more viewers than Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral which was watched by over 20 million across all platforms combined. Furthermore, India witnessed over 40 billion minutes of watch time across sports channel 18 and Jio Cinemas during this match alone!
Germany
FIFA’s World Cup draws billions of viewers every four years, yet what’s astonishing is the rate at which viewership is declining – especially among matches without Germany (of which several barely exceeded 10 million viewers).
Research by FIFA and Kantar Media indicated an average global in-home audience of 562 million for the 2014 final, which did not account for online or mobile-phone users. Of all regions, Concacaf viewership declined 13.6 percent — most likely as America wasn’t participating this year — while Germany saw slight drops as well – one game against Japan didn’t even draw 10 million people!
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Spain
As is frequently touted, the World Cup attracts the highest viewership of any sporting event ever held, drawing billions of people to tune in; indeed, its final matchup between France and Croatia reached record viewer numbers.
However, FIFA estimates that 51.3 percent of world’s population watched the final, which took approximately 35 minutes on average to watch.
The England vs Spain Women’s Semifinal was the highest-watched World Cup group stage matchup on American television without featuring a U.S. team, drawing 5.54 million combined English and Spanish language viewers across Fox and Telemundo networks – an astounding increase over ESPN2’s previous Women’s Final that didn’t feature Americans, which only attracted 664K. Spain went on to claim their maiden World Cup championship with a thrilling final victory of 1-0 over England.
United Kingdom
Women’s soccer has witnessed rapid growth in popularity ever since England won last year’s UEFA Euro, drawing huge TV audiences in England. World Cup matches this year alone have amassed more than two billion viewing hours on both broadcast and streaming platforms combined!
Although linear viewing has seen a steady decline over the years, as audiences increasingly shift toward watching events on demand or via smartphones for more flexible viewing options, still this World Cup was witnessed by an impressive audience figure count.
BBC has triumphed over ITV in the ratings battle during the final Group Stage matches, with coverage of Wales v USA drawing 13 million viewers on Friday evening peaking.
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Brazil
World soccer’s governing body estimates that more than 3.5 billion viewers watched at least some part of Russia 2018 World Cup – this includes in-home viewers as well as digital platforms and public viewing areas.
At the World Cup final between Germany and Argentina in 2018, more than one billion viewers tuned in – surpassing even Brazil and Argentina’s 2014 final with 562 million.
South America remains passionate about soccer, where record audiences watched Argentina’s loss to Switzerland even though they failed to qualify for the final. Meanwhile, viewing in Concacaf was slightly down from 2014 – making this tournament’s TV ratings the lowest they have been since Brazil 2014.