The International Basketball Federation (Fiba) has revealed that its recent World Cup in China delivered a total cumulative average television audience increase of over 80 per cent compared to the 2014 event in Spain.
Fiba partnered with over 70 broadcasters to deliver coverage in 190 territories during the event, which ran from August 31 to September 15 and was won by Spain.
In Spain, coverage of the final was shown by commercial free-to-air broadcaster Mediaset’s Cuatro channel and the match had a market share of 46 per cent, with over 10 million tuning in. A total of 6.2 million fans watched the full game, making it the country’s must successful basketball game ever.
Chinese broadcaster CCTV also posted its two highest live ratings of the year during the tournament, with the host nation’s matches against Poland and Korea attracting 68 million and 60 million viewers, respectively. The most-watched games on streaming service Tencent were China’s clash with Venezuela, which generated 52 million live views, and the aforementioned game against Poland, which drew in 50 million.
Fiba added that the #FIBAWC and #WorldGotGame hashtags generated 22 billion impressions and 535 million engagements on social media. The official Fiba and World Cup Weibo accounts also experienced over 200 per cent growth combined to total over 10 million fans, with all social media accounts now having more than 24 million fans.
Additionally, the official World Cup app was downloaded over two million times. The app allowed fans to follow players and teams, and provided live statistics and video highlights.