POSTED: June 8th 2010

ViewPoint

JOHN GOODBODY: Match on again for TV ratings title - World Cup v Olympic Games

THE JOHN GOODBODY COLUMN / An authoritative, exclusive series only from Sports Features Communications

LONDON, Jun 08: The Summer Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup are not just easily the most significant sports events on the planet, they are also, in television viewing terms, the most significant events. Period.

No other televised programme, not the the inauguration of United States President Barack Obama, not any of the annual Eurovision Song Contests, not even the 1997 funeral of Princess Di in 1997 has approached the global ratings of the two summits of sport.

This month’s World Cup will be vying with the 2008 Olympics for ratings leadership.

Although the Games had the highest figure in history with the Opening Ceremony being watched live by 593m people  (and the closing ceremony by 252m), viewing figures for eight matches in the 2006 World Cup topped the most watched sports event at the Games.

A special prize goes to anyone who already knows which one in 2008 . . . it was, in fact, the Cuba v. China Women’s Volleyball preliminary game, which attracted 184m. This figure probably would have been exceeded by the men’s 110metres hurdles only for the Chinese star Liu Xiang to fail to reach the final because of injury.

The best global figure from the 2006 World Cup was the final between Italy and France, watched by 322m people.

All these audience figures are ‘at home’ statistics and do not include people watching in places such as bars, clubs and social centres and they encompass 55 markets, representing 95 percent of the global gdp and advertising expenditure.

Kevin Alavy, director of Initiative, the futures sport plus entertainment  company, says that a key feature of this year’s World Cup will be that most matches in South Africa are being played at peak viewing time in Europe, as indeed they were in Germany in 2006.

Ratings capital

"Europe is the biggest market for football in ratings, whereas, for the Olympics, it is the Far East where there are countries, with huge populations, such as China and India, both over a billion, as well as others including Indonesia, Pakistan, Vietnam and Japan.

"If countries in the Far East were more successful in the World Cup, the ratings would be even higher, and apart from 2002 in South Korea (who reached the semi-finals) this has not happened.”

The Olympic figures leapt forward in 2008 because the Games were held in China, where state television produced saturation coverage of the Games, with the vast population eager to see the Games. By comparison, the opening ceremony in Athens only drew 140m viewers, fewer than a quarter of those watching in 2008.

Alavy says: "The strength of the Olympics is that the interest is so disparate, with so many people in different countries  watching different sports round the clock over 17 days.”

Big international stars like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps do pull in audiences but it is the cumulative interest of the Games that make them so impressive, with many countries having their own heroes and heroines.

One wonders if the International Olympic Committee will always continue its policy of having stadia without any perimeter advertising for the Summer and Winter Games, something for which so many companies are prepared to pay high advertising rates because of the huge television audiences.

It is something that  is denied companies in very few major sports events, others being the US Masters Golf Tournament and the Wimbledon Tennis Championships . . . but not, of course, the FIFA World Cup.

** JOHN GOODBODY covered the 2008 Olympics for The Sunday Times, his 11th successive Summer Games and is the author of the audio book A History of the Olympics, read by Barry Davies, the BBC commentator. He was Sports News Correspondent of The Times 1986-2007, for whom he received journalistic awards in all three decades on the paper, including Sports Reporter of The Year in 2001.

Keywords · Goodbody · Olympics Games · World Cup · TV ratings

For more information contact:
Laura Walden ()

All original materials contained in this section are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Sports Features Communications, Inc the owner of that content. It is prohibited to alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.