The cup’s changing line-up of mankind

You wouldn’t have thought many people would have watched Togo vs South Korea at the World Cup of 2006. These were unglamorous teams, meeting in the first round. Nonetheless, the game’s average live global TV audience was 109m viewers. That was more than saw last year’s Super Bowl of American football, or Champions League final, or probably any non-sporting TV programme. And the 109m doesn’t include hordes who watched outside their homes, in bars or on big screens.

Next month’s tournament could be the most watched media event in history, competing only with the Beijing Olympics, says Kevin Alavy, director at Initiative, futures sport + entertainment, a research agency.

Mr Alavy gave me some insight into some of the data he has gathered on world cups. The agency has collected reliable TV data from 55 countries, as opposed to the inflated figures trumpeted by the sports events themselves. Initiative’s numbers capture something of the World Cup’s uniqueness.

The context is that almost all TV programmes are losing viewers. When most people only had a couple of channels, whole nations would sink into the sofa at the same time for favourite programmes. Now with hundreds of channels plus DVD and the internet, that hardly happens. Audiences keep splintering. The generic sports programme around the world loses about 5 per cent of its viewers each year. Only a handful of big sports events are keeping their audiences: the Olympics, Super Bowl, Champions League final and big international football tournaments. And the World Cup does better than just hold on, says Mr Alavy: “We’re expecting this year’s World Cup to be more viewed than ever before.”

While other programmes become ever more niche, almost every demographic now watches the World Cup. That sets the tournament apart from even the biggest club matches. Togo-Korea drew 10 times more global live viewers at home than any game in England’s Premier League.

Even young people watch the tournament: a third of the audience is aged 16 to 34. Mr Alavy notes: “Many sports events, such as golf and cycling, have a horrible time trying to appeal to young viewers.”

Women watch. In 2006 they made up 41 per cent of the World Cup’s audience. In some countries, like Venezuela, most viewers were female. The notion of “world cup widows” has become outdated, says Mr Alavy. “Now there must be world cup widowers.”

Upmarket viewers watch. In 2002 they were still fractionally less interested than the average person, but by 2006 were 6 per cent more likely to watch than the average.

No longer is the phrase “World Cup” a misnomer. Until 1990 the tournament should have been called the European-Latin American duopoly. Now, though, the cup penetrates almost the whole world.

Mr Alavy says the three most populous countries, China, India and the US, are still in Initiative’s bottom five for average viewing of the cup. If these countries continue to switch on, then one day Togo vs South Korea might truly stop the world.

For now, the tournament’s keenest viewers are the Croats, Dutch and Norwegians. The UK, says Mr Alavy, never makes the top 10 of average viewers. The amplified British tabloid noise is not reflected in the population’s behaviour. Many Britons prefer to consume international football in the form of sex scandals.

Yet the World Cup may still be the most communal experience the country gets. The tournament provides some of the national glue once supplied by churches or royal weddings. And the shared experience seems to make lonely people happier. The Greek epidemiologists Eleni Petridou, Fotis Papadapoulos and Nick Dessypris have shown that in most European countries the suicide rate falls during big tournaments.

The World Cup briefly turns a nation into a family, and it also creates something approximating the universal family of man. Initiative expects this World Cup to draw 5 per cent more viewers than the last one. If that applies to the final, then 670m people, or a tenth of mankind, might see at least part of the game live.

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