FIFA World Cup 2022: How many Indians watched the football matches so far?
The cumulative reach for the first 48 matches of the tournament has touched 42.2 million, as per BARC data for Cable & Satellite (CS) 2+ audience.
ADVERTISEMENT
The ongoing FIFA World Cup, which kickstarted on 20 November, is continuing to engage fans across the country. The cumulative reach for the first 48 matches of the tournament has touched 42.2 million, as per BARC data for Cable & Satellite (CS) 2+ audience, states a report from Economic Times. It further adds that the average match reach is 5.9 million. In terms of cumulative reach, the top 5 regions are Kerala (13.1 million), West Bengal (8.69 million), Assam/North East/Sikkim (7.1 million), Tamil Nadu/Puducherry (2.7 million), and Maharashtra/Goa (2.3 million), as per the ET report based on BARC data. Ratings wise, the top five markets include Assam/North East/Sikkim, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu/Puducherry and Odisha. In terms of games, Brazil vs Switzerland game was the most reached match of the tournament with 13 million viewers. It is to be noted that Viacom18, the official FIFA broadcast rights holder, is airing the matches on Sports18 and Sports 18 HD. The matches are also being streamed live on the Jio Cinema app for free.
Digital viewership can be ascertained by the number of downloads of Jio Cinema app which grossed over 1.1 billion views, as of December 5.
In a statement issued on 1 December, FIFA officially shares that World Cup Qatar 2022 is continuing to engage TV audiences around the world. In Japan, the group game between Japan and Costa Rica on 27 November drew an average audience of 36.37 million viewers. This surpassed the audience of their comeback against Germany in their tournament opener by over 10 million and was 74 percent higher than the average domestic group stage audience during the FIFA World Cup in 2018.
On Thursday 24 November in Korea Republic, 11.14 million people watched their tournament opener against Uruguay. European football fans have also been tuning, on 28 November, 65 percent of people watching TV in Spain saw La Roja take on Germany in one of the most anticipated games of the tournament so far.
Around 76.6 percent of all people watching TV in the Netherlands witnessed Cody Gakpo’s wonder strike in their 1-1 draw with Ecuador. This was the highest TV audience in the country in 2022 and greater than any match during the FIFA World Cup in 2018.
Portugal’s league match with Uruguay on 28 November was the highest TV audience in Portugal for a FIFA World Cup match ever. In France, Les Bleus’ match with Denmark, averaged an audience of 11.6 million viewers.
