The World Cup Could Be The Biggest Live Event Ever
The most watched live event ever?
The Soccer World Cup could turn out to be the most watched live event ever.As the event kicked off yesterday, literally Hundreds of millions of worldwide viewers have been glued to the screen to watch the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.It is expected that around 1 in 10 of the population (around 600 million) will tune into the final on July 11th.
“It’s the moment when the planet becomes a family , when we’re all doing the same thing whether we are in California or Nigeria or Shanghai,” “Soccernomics” author Simon Kuper said.
Interest from around the world has been so big that the World Cup is already smashing Internet stream viewing records as fans from around the world check for live video streams and scores.
The World Cup does pose a danger to networks though, as so many workers will be watching live streams of the football without permission that networks will be overwhelmed and may come to a standstill.
In Germany for the last World Cup, around 638 million people watched the final with matches broadcast in 214 countries, with even Togo vs. South Korea attracting an average live audience of 109 million viewers. And this final is expected to sttract a much bigger audience.
There is only one other event that comes close to rivalling the World Cup for viewing figures, and that is the summer Olympics. The Beijing games of 2008 were the most watched ever, largely because of the sizable domestic audience. The opening ceremony drew upwards of a billion people, making it the most-watched live event ever.
Comparing audience figures for the Olympics and the World Cup is a tricky business. The two events are structured differently, and estimates can vary considerably.
However the World Cup is a totally unique event, so says Kevin Alavy of Futures Sport:- “No other media property delivers the same spikes in audience delivery, day-after-day, sustained over a month,” he said. “Not even the Summer Olympics, whose audiences, while similarly large, are more dispersed over all hours of the day and across multiple sports taking place simultaneously. In that sense, the World Cup can be described as the largest shared experience around.”
The event is expected to generate over $1 billion in TV rights, So if your going to watch the matches streaming online, get your seat early before the servers get frazzled.
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