Last week Nielsen published the 2015 Year In Sports Media Report. Here’s four headlines that jumped out for us:
There’s was more soccer on TV than there were hours in the year!
According to Nielsen there were over 9,000 hours of live national soccer programming in 2015. That’s about 378 days of soccer during a 365 day year!
The FIFA Women’s World Cup killed it
The 23.6 million viewers for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Final placed it in the top 100 programs of the year and the 3rd most watched non-football event. The game had 67% growth from the World Cup Final in Germany four years prior. Growth was driven by huge increases amoung Women 12-17 (+48%) and Women 18-34 (+ 43%). Women overall were 43% of the viewing audience.
Live sports rules
One of more eye catching stats speaks to the incredible strength of live sports. In 2005, sports programming made up only 14% of the top 100 programs watched live. Fast forward 10 years and sports made up 93% of the top 100 programs watched live. According to data from Q4 2015, 95% of total sports program viewing happened live, highlighting (if there was any doubt) that in an era of time-shifted viewing, live sports remains must-see now TV.
Sports loves Twitter and Twitter loves sports
Close to 50% of all Twitter TV conversation happens around live sports.
Categories: Television Ratings, U.S. Soccer, Women's World Cup