World Cup US ratings growing, advertisers crowing
Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:40 PM ET
By Michele Gershberg
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banner growth in television ratings for the tension-filled World Cup soccer final proved a boon to U.S. advertisers, who bet the sport would finally attract significant interest in the United States.
According to early Nielsen ratings data released on Tuesday, nearly 12 million viewers tuned in to Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network on Sunday to watch Italy beat France in a match that ended with a round of penalty kicks. That was nearly triple the audience for the last championship game in 2002 and, overall, it ranked as the third most-watched men's soccer game on ABC.
"It definitely exceeded (expectations)," said network spokesman David Nagle. "It's not just a good-sized audience, it's a very urban and upscale audience and we're very bullish on soccer going forward."
Official World Cup sponsors this year included McDonald's Corp., Coca-Cola Co., Anheuser-Busch Cos Inc. and Yahoo Inc..
U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications Inc. saw ratings for its World Cup finals broadcast rise 75 percent to more than 5 million viewers. Official Nielsen ratings for the tournament are due on Thursday.
But soccer is still a poor cousin in the United States compared with sports such as football, baseball and basketball. Nearly 91 million viewers tuned in to watch the U.S. National Football League's Super Bowl championship this year.
Nevertheless, sports marketing experts see a definite shift in U.S. soccer viewing habits. While the World Cup finals were followed by a passionate audience of Italian-Americans, viewership was not only driven by ethnic or national affiliation this year, they said.
"What we would call the 'average American' is now looking at the World Cup as a truly exciting and important international event without any need to identify with Italy or ... or Ghana or Brazil," said Neal Pilson, a former president of CBS Sports, who runs his own sports and entertainment consultancy in New York. "It's pretty clear the World Cup has arrived in the United States."
In all, Univision's three television and cable networks pulled in 50 million viewers for the duration of the three-week tournament. Nearly 21 million of those viewers were not Hispanic, suggesting the event's draw was beyond soccer fans hailing from Latin America.
Excluding the finale, ABC saw an average rating of 2.9 million homes for its World Cup broadcasts, more than double the viewership in 2002. Its cable sports sibling, ESPN, averaged more than 1.7 million homes for games broadcast through July 5.
ABC and ESPN, as well as Univision, agreed in November to pay a record $425 million to continue to air World Cup soccer and other events from 2007 to 2014. It was the largest deal ever struck by the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) for broadcast rights in a single country.
The next World Cup, set for South Africa in 2010, will bring a fresh crop of media buzz in the United States, sports business experts said.
"There will be that level of business and political curiosity," said David Carter, executive director at the University of Southern California's Sports Business Institute. "How are sponsors going to feel about that region, will they have the facilities ready and what will the political environment be?"
