We don’t usually see much information on non-US ratings, primarily because the trade media we follow doesn’t highlight it, but here’s some interesting numbers from the European Champions League soccer (football) final in which Barcelona defeated Manchester United 2-0.
In Spain, the match, played at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, generated 11.3 million viewers and a 61.7% share for free-to-air web Antena 3 TV. This was the network’s biggest audience so far this season.
Factor in those Iberian auds watching Barcelona’s Lionel Messi clinch the winner in the second half on Sogecable’s paybox Canal Plus and the figure grows to a 65.2% share — some 11.9 million.
This was Spain’s biggest Champions League TV audience since the contest between local teams Real Madrid and Valencia nine years ago in the 2000 final.
In Blighty, ITV1’s coverage of the match easily outpaced “The Apprentice,” aired by BBC1, which normally wins its slot, making it the evening’s biggest program.
Despite Manchester United never looking like potential winners, apart from a strong perf in the game’s opening 10 minutes, ITV1 attracted 9.6 million viewers and a 39% share, according to unofficial overnight figures.
But viewing for the final was down on last year. Then ITV1 got 11.1 million viewers and a 46% share in an all-English game between Manchester United and Chelsea.
Over on payweb, Sky Sports 1, the soccer drew 1.79 million viewers for the two hours of live coverage from 7.45 p.m., a 7.9% multichannel share.
In Italy, pubcaster RAI achieved a 36% share on its RAI Uno channel. Average viewing figure was 9.63 million, peaking at in excess of 10 million.
“Given that there was no Italian team playing, we’re obviously pretty pleased with these figures,” a RAI spokeswoman told Variety.
In Germany, Sat-1’s coverage of the game won 6.55 million viewers, a 23% share.
The last German team in the competition, Bayern Munich, were eliminated by Barcelona in the quarterfinals last month.
In France, the match — shown on commercial free-TV web TF1 — attracted 8.25 million, a 34% share, twice that of its nearest rival, TV movie “Le Tuteur,” which attracted 4.1 million and a 16% share on pubcaster France 2.
via Variety.
I watched it too and I still don’t know what the hell happened to ManU…
The rating for the football really isnt that good compared to every other day on ITV1 this week… Each night a a semi-final if Britians Got Talent has go around 12 million viewers, i would expect around 15m for the final
Also the Apperentice had nearly 7m viewers agains the football which is not much less then it usually gets!
I’m italian and almost 10M here it’s like “UNBELIEVABLE”.
But soccer it’s our primary sport, so no surprise here.
Don’t forget in the UK sh*tloads of people would have watched it in the pub and those numbers wouldn’t get included in the ratings.
The report is not accurate because there were litteraly millions of people all over Europe watching in Bars and public parks. In Barcelona there were hunderts of thousand of people out watching in public areas.
If you think that this numbers are impressive, I remember a report about a Euro 2008 game with Germany that got like 70% rating in Germany.
An article from Euro 2008:
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/122016