MUMBAI: Although football is still far off to be compared to cricket’s position as the top sport in the country, 498 million viewers from across the country watched the beautiful game on television in 2018 as compared to 741 million tuning in for cricket. This is an all-time record for Indian television for football.
These insights, presented by BARC India head of partnerships Elbert D’Silva at the Star Sports India Football Forum 2018, organised here by SportzPower last Friday, were among the highlights of what was power packed conference agenda.
BARC reckons that Indian football captain and legend Sunil Chhetri’s famous plea on social media earlier this year was responsible in triggering a domestic football viewing revolution in the country. As a result, the second match of the Hero Intercontinental Cup in Mumbai between India and Kenya saw 10,000 fans throng the stadium vis-à -vis 2,569 for the first India vs Taipei game.
On Star Sports 2, as many as 701,000 fans tuned in for the Kenya clash as compared to 324,000 for the India-Taipei game.
Courtesy the FIFA World Cup in Russia during the summer and the ongoing Indian Super League (ISL), football was telecast in 14 languages across 136 channels, amounting to more than 48,000 hours of content consumed. Both the events were also primarily responsible for a 100% increase in growth of viewership in terms of impressions this year.
The FIFA WC final between France and Croatia was watched by 16 million people, making India the fourth largest market in the world for viewing the game after China (56 million), Germany (21 million) and France itself (19 million).
When it comes to the ISL, this season has a significant rise in numbers with 103 million people already tuning in after just 34 matches completed. 2017-18 had 173 million after all the 95 matches. Viewers were seen spending the most time (21.16 mins) on the FC Pune City vs Kerala Blasters match. Kerala’s popularity also meant that its home game against Mumbai City FC garnered 5.2 million viewers, the highest of the season so far.
In international football leagues, Indian viewers seemed awestruck by Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer from Real Madrid to Juventus this summer, which saw a spike in Serie A’s TV ratings from 9 million in Aug-Sept 2017 to 25 million during the same period this year. On the other hand, the famed El Clasico tussle between Barcelona and Real Madrid saw a sharp decline from 3.9 million to 300,000. Talk about mixed results for host broadcaster Sony!
With India’s youth proving to be the biggest football enthusiasts in the country, the Premier League has exactly catered to that as 51% of its viewers are under the age of 30, making the most watched tournament with 101 million viewers.
