It seems
soccer, as they call it, is starting to stir the soul of the American fan and
many are already finding time to stray away from basketball courts to enjoy
some moments of football madness and 2014 Fifa World cup present such a special
case study.
“Is U.S.
Trending away from dunking?” A
journalist at Rio De Janeiro asked Michael Jordan, the star that made the sport
so popular around the world: “Basketball isn’t a sport in U.S. It’s the very
life of 'Uncle Sam’s Hacks' and I don’t think that can change.” He Answered.
But key
indicators suggest interest in football has reached a new zenith. CNN Report
that USA had the largest global audience in 2014 Fifa world cup. And I can
break it down for you, starting from Media participation.
Television Viewership:
The average
sports fan in U.S. is getting into football during this world cup like never
before. Watching ESPN’s coverage in the states, with every game broadcasted
live and actions appearing in Sports centers, fan fests in major cities. What
that means is this; football is no longer a minority sport but one that is on
the up.
For
instance, the match between U.S Vs Portugal, according to Nielsen report, were
watched by 25 million television viewers. Larger than that of NBA finals in
2013, which average 15 million viewers on ABC, while baseball’s 2013 world
series delivered similar figure on Fox.
Online Participations:
The digital
realm is another area that’s experiencing a surge of traffic from America’s
world cup interest. The last group game, U.S Vs Germany, set a fresh online
audience record, when over 15 million people screamed the game via
watchESPN.com
The world
cup has also seen new heights of 389, 000 average messages per minutes recorded
on Twitter, eclipsing the previous mark set by activity around Super Bowl,
Academy award (OSCAR) and Sochi Winter Olympics, combined.
Facebook
confirmed this year’s festival of football is the first event that generated1
billion engagements – posts, comments, and Likes – on its platform with 220
million users’ interactions.
A Fifa
official says the traffic from the USA accounted for over 400 million
engagements with world cup content through its website, fifa.com and mobile
App, 2014 fifa world cup count down.
Stadium Attendance in Brazil:
It’s not
just 'fandom' in the digital sphere, where America has been a force, but
supporters from the states were second only to host nation Brazil in the amount
of tickets bought for the tournament – 196, 838 tickets were sold to fans from
USA. No wonder, we saw such Mormon crowd of Americans all around Brazil’s
stadiums, surpassing British fans and German fans respectively.
Report shows
that 2014 world cup games in general brought about a 50% audience increase in
the U.S, higher than those from South Africa 2010 – 4.3 million as against 2.8
million in 2010. Another point in time is USA 1994, which was 2.2 million.
The
explosion of interest was partly generated because of the heroic performance of
Jurgen Klinsmann managed U.S Men’s soccer team (USMT), that defeated Belgium ,
drew with Portugal and gave a good account of themselves against Germany. The
team got to the round of 16 in the tournament.
However,
this isn’t an overnight sensation. It’s been building and growing for 25 years
now. “We are excited to see our fan base grow and more and more people involved
in the world cup.” Rod Bucthe, USA Soccer Senior Manager of Communications
said.
