The World Cup Championship is typically a family-friendly affair that millions all around the world like to indulge in. The World Cup Championships is a football championship that includes teams from all around the world who play against one another to determine the best team out of them all.
The World Cup Championship is usually held every four years and is an extremely anticipated event. If you are a fan of football or are immersed in the world of football, this World Cup is the most important event that occurs every four years.
There is a certain charm around teams from all around the world gathering in a single country and playing matches against one another. Since football is a relatively popular sport, the World Cup Championships have extremely high viewership. When the schedule for the matches is announced, many people try to free up their time, so they can watch the matches in peace.
Furthermore, the World Cup is also aired all around the world, and people of all races, speaking different languages are united in enjoying their favorite sport.
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup is an international football competition. Here, many senior men’s national teams compete against one another to determine the winner. The members of FIFA or the Fédération Internationale de Football Association are the main contestants in the match.
FIFA is the sports global governing body that organizes the championship every four years. The World Cup started in 1930 and takes place every four years except in 1942 and 1946 because of the Second World War. The current champion is France, who won their second World Cup title in 2018. The 2018 FIFA World Cup took place in Russia.
Currently, the FIFA World Cup begins with a qualification phase, which spans over three years. During this time period, FIFA determines the teams who will qualify for the tournament. There are 32 teams that are selected for the tournament phase. Among these 32 teams, the host nation qualifies automatically.
The entire World Cup runs for a month in various venues all around the host country. Due to the long duration of the World Cup, the viewership is overall quite high. For certain countries, more fans tune in than for others. Specifically, when a famous player is on the field, the viewership tends to be high.
Overall, the FIFA World Cup has had twenty-one final tournaments, and a total of 79 national teams have competed. Furthermore, the trophy has been won by eight national teams.
Brazil has won the title the most. They have claimed the World Cup trophy five times and are also the only team that has been a part of every single World Cup since 1930.
Other countries that have snagged the trophy include Germany and Italy, which have each won four titles each. Other winners include France, Uruguay, and Argentina. These countries have won two titles each. England and Spain have only managed to win one title each.
The FIFA World Cup is by far the most prestigious event, and it is the most widely viewed and followed sporting event. The World Cups held in 2006, for example, had a viewership of around 26.29 million. However, the final match had an even higher viewership of 715.1 million.
The final match is usually the one with the most viewership, as it consists of two of the best teams competing against one another. The 2006 FIFA World Cup had a ninth of the entire population glued to their screen watching the moves of all the players on their screen.
In total, 17 countries have hosted the World Cup. Countries such as Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, and Italy have hosted it twice, while others such as England, Russia, Uruguay, Chile, Spain, the United States, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, South Korea, and Sweden have hosted it twice.
Qatar, the United States, Canada, and Mexico are expected to hold the upcoming games. Thus, Mexico will become the only country to have hosted this prestigious event thrice.
The Record Audience
The 2018 FIFA World Cup was one of the most-watched events in the world. This tournament was broadcasted live in almost every area of the world from 14th June to 15th July.
Due to its high media coverage, it had a record audience of more than 3.5 billion people. The World Cup took place in Russia, and the final was between France and Croatia.
FIFA reports that the 2018 FIFA World Cup had 3.572 billion viewers. Thus, more than half of the global population, aged four and over, was watching the official coverage. Globally, those who had TV, watched at least a minute or two of the global coverage.
Adding all these views, the coverage accounted for around 3.3 billion views. These numbers show a 2.2% increase from the 2014 edition of the World Cup, which was hosted by Brazil.
On digital platforms, the World Cup Championships were also widely viewed. FIFA counted almost 309.7 million views from carious public viewing areas, such as bars, restaurants, and from digital platforms.
During this World Cup, the most-watched match was the final between France and Croatia. France won 4-2, and they won their second World Cup title after their 1998 win. The second most-watched match was the semi-final between England and Croatia, where England lost. The match between France and Belgium also had a high viewership.
Such high viewership shows that the live coverage of the World Cup was high quality and that there were millions of football fans all around the world that were insatiably waiting to watch the football stars show off their skills.
The Average Viewership for the World Cup Championships
It is estimated that on average, billions of people watch the tournament and enjoy the World Cup in all its glory from the comfort of their homes. The Final between France and Croatia of the recent World Cup is estimated to have pulled around a billion people. However, the average live audience was somewhere around 517 million viewers.
However, in the previous World Cup finals, the viewership was much higher than before. According to FIFA, there were 531 million people who watched the Spain and Netherland finals. Furthermore, the Argentina and Germany final was watched by 562 million people.
Even though different countries have different interests, major countries like the United Kingdom, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, and Portugal have a high World Cup average viewership, and it is watched much more than other sports.
In the US, FIFA World Cup is not as largely watched, but it is on the rise. The Americans prefer to watch the Super Bowl, which has an extremely high viewership. It was reported that over the last 33 years, the average viewership of the Super Bowl was around 95 million.
Conclusion
Among the many competitions held all around the world, the FIFA World Cup is by far the most-watched. As there are many football fans all around the world, it is not surprising that millions tune in to watch the best players of the world battle it out for the trophy.
The last World Cup that was held had over a billion people tune in to watch the players in action.
Even though the constant views were lower, it is estimated that around a ninth of the total population tuned in to watch some part of the World Cup. These numbers prove just how prevalent the sport is and just how many fans it has all around the world.