Broadcasting the World Cup

FIFA’s World Cup, and the Olympic Games, are considered the most prestigious and popular global sports events. This is reflected in both the TV viewing figures and the values of the TV rights. Before the 2010 World Cup, FIFA measured the cumulative audience. According to these measurements, the 1994 World Cup in the USA had the all-time high audience of 32.1 billion viewers, followed by the 2002 World Cup in Japan/Korea and the 1990 World Cup in Italy, which attracted respectively 28.8 billion and 26.7 billion viewers. The 2002 figures include 2.5 billion out-of-home viewers.1 However, because of double counting, cumulative audience is no longer the standard measurement for TV rating figures. Instead, this is now done on the number of unique viewers.