2014 FIFA World Cup Forecast: $4 Billion for Broadcast

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND—An analyst for Deloitte predicts a record-setting World cup for broadcasters globally. Austin Houlihan, senior consultant at Deloitte’s Sports Business Group, forecasts a $4 billion haul.

“This Thursday, June 12, will see the kick-off of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. The World Cup is a premium property for free-to-air broadcasters in particular, due to its ability to generate high audiences in many territories. For example, in major European markets, tournament matches typically generate the highest sports audiences in that particular year. The German audience for the 2010 World Cup semi-final between Germany and Spain exceeded 30 million viewers, the first time a single German broadcaster had exceeded an audience of this size,” he said.

“The World Cup’s kick-off times are conducive to driving strong audiences in areas such as North and South America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. As a result, the tournament in Brazil could generate a record global television audience. The 2010 final—Spain vs. Netherlands—was watched by a cumulative global audience of 910 million in-home viewers (measured as people watching at least one minute of coverage), according to FIFA research and if you include out-of-home viewers (e.g. pubs/clubs) the audience was in excess of 1 billion.

“The World Cup’s ability to generate such audiences means that broadcasters and sponsors pay premium rights fees to secure rights to broadcast, or be associated, with the tournament. The 2014 tournament is likely to generate record high revenues for FIFA, which has forecast broadcast and commercial revenues of around $4 billion.

“Deloitte predicts that as well as driving record broadcast and sponsorship revenues, the tournament will help to drive new standards in the quality of broadcast production. Production innovations include some matches being produced in ultra-high definition—4k and 8k—and an increased number of cameras and angles covering matches. The tournament will also cater for the increasing trend for audiences to view content through mobile devices, with greater numbers of viewers being able to access match footage—live, highlights, video on demand, clips—and associated content through their tablets and mobiles.”

See…
“World Cup Set to Win U.S. Audience,” TV Technology, June 10, 2014.