CBC’s great World Cup numbers and how they could boost Canada’s bid for 2026 By Steven Sandor Posted on July 3, 2014 3 0 698 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter My inbox regularly pings when yet another press release about TV ratings comes out. It sorta works like this. If ratings are good (such as this World Cup, or Olympic hockey numbers), the network that’s got the rights wants to tell as many people as it can about its success: How many people watch, what are the key demographics, when the broadcast reached its peak viewership. Now, if the ratings are poor, we get nothing, nada. How did last year’s MLS Cup do, ratings-wise, on TSN? We didn’t get a press release on that. Of course, the average journalist gets so many of these big-TV-numbers releases, that they simply become background noise. But the CBC’s numbers for this World Cup deserve a mention. Not because anyone needs to be pumping up the CBC’s tires. The network has already announced that, in its post-NHL life, it is getting out of the sports business. Why do we need to celebrate the numbers? Because the outstanding TV viewership tallies can be used by the Canadian Soccer Association for a greater purpose. Why? Because any shred of positive soccer viewership news that can be crammed into the World Cup 2026 bid book helps this country’s cause. So, here are the numbers, quoted directly from the CBC: “• To date, 29.5 million Canadians have tuned into some aspect of CBC/Radio-Canada or its partners’ 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil coverage, either online or on TV since June 12, 2014. About 5.5 million of these viewers have tuned in to consume the content on a digital platform. • Five out of eight games in Round of 16 posted 2+ average audiences of more than two million viewers, compared to only one out of eight in 2010. This was led by the USA vs. Belgium match on July 1, 2014 with a 2+ audience of 2.7 million. • The Round of 16 games averaged a 2+ audience of 2.1 million, 42 per cent higher than the Round of 16 live games averages in 2010, with 1.475 million. • Canadians have streamed over 8 million hours of CBC’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil coverage digitally on either the website or on the app. • 95 per cent of all New Canadians across the country have tuned in to some part of CBC / Radio-Canada, or one of its broadcast partners, online or TV coverage of FIFA World Cup.” These numbers, especially as they get better as we head towards the final, will be vital as the Canadian Soccer Association tries to convince FIFA that it has what it takes to host the World Cup in 2026. As CSA president Victor Montagliani told us in the 16-page World Cup 2026 bid section in the summer issue of Plastic Pitch, the bid is going forward, and is expected to get to FIFA’s offices in Switzerland some time in 2016. A decision is expected by 2018. As well, in that same feature, Montagliani told Plastic Pitch that, of all the nations in the world, Canada ranked 11th when it came to buying tickets for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. But, more importantly, Canada is tops in terms of World Cup ticket buyers out of all the nations that didn’t make the final 32 in Brazil. So, of all the, ahem, “neutral” nations, Canada ranks No. 1 in terms of ticket sales. Add to that the impressive TV numbers, and we can really put some nice pie charts and info graphics in our bid book. For Canada, World Cup viewership numbers are about a lot more than impressing advertisers or spurring discussions about the commercial viability of the game, here. It’s about padding stats for the biggest sporting-event bid in this country’s history.
