Euro 2016: Did more teams and matches mean more TV viewers? - Sportcal

Euro 2016: Did more teams and matches
mean more TV viewers?
Soccer - 11 Aug 2016

The Uefa European Championships were first
played in 1960 when France played host and
the event featured just four teams. The
tournament returned to French soil for the
third time in 2016, but with 20 additional
teams. The total of 24 competing nations was
up on the 16 that had been a staple of the
event since Euro 96, but still behind the 32
that contest the Fifa World Cup. This meant
an extra round of matches to benefit broadcasters, and more group matches with different
kick-off times to give the tournament more appeal in varying time zones, and as the total
number of matches rose to 51 from 31. On the field, the new format led to some complex
qualifying permutations and defensive matches in the group stages, with eventual winners
Portugal escaping their pool without actually winning a match.

Sportcal Media takes a look at the figures in key markets for matches involving the national
team at Euro 2016, and analyses the impact of an increased number of matches.

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Whereas Portugal’s run to the final might have surprised many fans during the tournament,
it wasn’t surprising to see its viewership rise as the team progressed through the knock-out
rounds. Peak audiences in the country were also buoyed by three of Portugal’s four knock-
out matches going to extra-time, affording RTP, the Portuguese public-service broadcaster,
more time with captivated viewers. There was a peak viewing share of 75 per cent during
extra time against Croatia, while the quarter-final penalty shoot-out win over Poland
recorded a peak share of 78.9 per cent for RTP during the spot kicks. The final against
France did, however, fall slightly short of RTP’s 4.41-million peak for the semi-final against
Wales. The tournament was also broadcast on pay-TV in Portugal by Sport TV.

There were three domestic Euro 2016 broadcasters in host country France as commercial
rivals TF1 and M6 shared free-to-air coverage and BeIN Sports broadcast all matches live
on pay-TV. TF1 and M6 broadcast 22 and 11 matches, respectively, an output that covered
all France matches and knock-out ties, with M6 showing the final, compensating for only
broadcasting three of Les Bleus’ seven matches. Prior to the tournament, M6’s highest
audience was 13.2 million for France’s Euro 2008 clash with Italy, but its record was broken
during each of the France matches it aired at the 2016 edition, culminating with an average
of 20.8 million viewers for the final against Portugal. This still fell short of the overall French
audience record set by TF1 for the 2006 Fifa World Cup final (an average of 22.2 million
viewers and 76.6-per-cent share).

When combined with the pay-TV figures from BeIN Sports, the final did just surpass the
2006 showpiece between France and Italy as the average of 1.5 million viewers on pay-TV
took the total to 22.3 million. BeIN’s figure fell narrowly short of its all-time audience record of
1.55 million - set in last season’s Uefa Champions League quarter-final between Paris Saint-
Germain and Manchester City - but it was still an impressive figure given the match was
simultaneously available free-to-air.

Over the course of the tournament, the increased number of matches was a boost for beIN
which paid €60 million for live rights (as part of a two-tournament deal also covering the

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2012 edition and totalling €110 million). The remaining €50 million reportedly paid for 2012
covered tournament with 31 matches, costing an average of €1.61 million per match,
compared to €1.18 million (per match) for 2016. While money was recouped on sub-license
deals with TF1 and M6, the 2016 tournament did represent better value for beIN, especially
given the increased interest with France as the hosts.

All of the free-to-air matches from the quarter-final stage onwards enjoyed a larger
viewership than the highest-rated match involving France at the 2014 Fifa World Cup. The
quarter-final defeat to Germany in 2014 was watched by 16.9 million viewers on TF1, while
the semi-final against the same opponents in 2016 gave TF1 its best audience of the year
(ahead of the opening match of the tournament against Romania).

Despite falling at the semi-final stage, Germany’s national team once again pulled in an
impressive number of viewers for ARD and ZDF, the public-service broadcasters that shared
coverage of the tournament. The semi-final defeat to France was the most-watched
European Championships match ever in Germany with 29.8 million, beating the 29.5 million
who tuned in for the 2008 semi-final with Turkey. It was also the third-highest audience for
German public-service television, with the semi-final and final of the 2014 World Cup the
only events to better it.

While major international tournaments have predominantly been the domain of ARD and
ZDF in Germany, Sat.1, the free-to-air commercial broadcaster, sub-licensed rights to the
second-choice game from the final match day in the group stages (when fixtures are played
simultaneously). Unsurprisingly, it struggled against the bigger matches shown by the
established tournament broadcasters, with its best audience being the 2.93 million that tuned
in to watch Ireland defeat Italy.

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After crashing out in the group stages of the 2014 World Cup, expectations might not have
been high for Italian soccer fans going into Euro 2016, but the audience of 15.5 million
for Italy’s opening match against Belgium was only just behind the two biggest audiences in
2014. Earlier kick-off times and a dead rubber against the Republic of Ireland didn’t help
audiences for the next three matches, but the quarter-final against Germany recorded a
huge average of 16.6 million, bettering any of the matches shown in Italy at the 2014 World
Cup. There were also 3.1 million viewers on pay-TV’s Sky Italia, with the audience peaking
at 17.6 million on public broadcaster Rai and 3.3 million on Sky for the penalty shoot-out.

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After a late deal to secure the rights to the tournament with less than a month to go before it
kicked off, Mediaset’s Telecinco broadcast 23 matches of Euro 2016 in Spain, including all
of those for the national team. The remaining 28 games were streamed on the Uefa website
to Spanish internet users after there were no suitable offers made for pay-TV rights. Figures
for Spanish national team games didn’t match those of the first two 2014 World Cup
matches, when Telecinco recorded 11.3 million and 13.2 million viewers for the games
against the Netherlands and Chile, respectively.

In the markets studied it was unusual for a knock-out match to have a lower audience than
any of the group games (featuring the national team of a particular market), but Spain’s last-
16 clash with Italy was such as an example as the early evening Monday kick off took effect.
The match also came after Spain’s surprise defeat to Croatia.

Despite a dismal showing on the pitch, England matches still pulled big audiences for the
BBC, the public-service broadcaster, and ITV, the free-to-air commercial broadcaster. None
of the games quite matched the 18.5-million average for England’s game with Uruguay in the
2014 World Cup, but the national team’s matches against Russia, Slovakia and Iceland all
delivered ITV its highest audience of the year.

The BBC’s figures for the ‘Home Nations’ battle with Wales were low given the magnitude of
the game, but the 9.3-million peak was still impressive considering the 2pm (BST) kick-off
time on a Thursday afternoon when many potential viewers were at work. The figure can be
topped up with online numbers as the BBC broke its record for the highest streaming
audience on its website with 2.3 million viewers. Including catch-up viewers in June, the
match received 2.84 million requests on BBC iPlayer.

While the 2pm kick-off time was inconvenient for a lot of supporters keen to watch England v
Wales in the UK during work hours, the addition of that early afternoon kick-off time did
enable more viewers to take in matches in Asia, with games appearing in prime time evening
slots. Whereas previous tournaments scheduled matches kicking off in the late afternoon

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and evening with only two games needed per day, the extra eight teams in 2016 meant that
three group matches were the norm in the early days of the tournament.

No matter the stage of the competition or the quality of the teams involved, the nine matches
in the tournament kicking off at 3pm

CET (9pm China Standard Time) were the most-watched in China, with the final itself 10th
on the list based on China’s TV rating system drawn from provincial and city panels. State
broadcaster China Central Television aired free-to-air coverage on sports channel CCTV-5,
with an average of 13 million viewers for the early kick-off time. This compared to an
average of 4.3 million and 1.7 million for later start times. This will doubtless encourage Uefa
that there is interest in major markets in Asia and could prompt the scheduling of more
matches in a similar time slot for future tournaments especially as, on this occasion, no
matches past the round of 16 offered an early kick-off time.

Wales’ defeat to England was the most-watched game in China, and the performance of the
Welsh side epitomised the other major benefit of having a larger number of teams in the
tournament. With a greater chance of qualifying for the finals, smaller teams who had rarely
featured in major international tournaments, played out a more fascinating qualification
campaign during Uefa’s first cycle of centralised TV rights for the qualifying stage across
Europe. Wales caused one of the biggest surprises, topping their qualifying group ahead of
Belgium, and carried that form into the tournament itself, reaching the semi-finals before
defeat to Portugal.

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The semi-final defeat did create interest across the UK, as 9.6 million watched ITV’s
coverage, an impressive figure given Andy Murray’s epic five-set Wimbledon quarter-final on
the BBC overran into the first half. In Wales itself, the match averaged 1.2 million viewers,
with the peak of 1.33 million beating the record for live sport on television in the country, set
at 1.27 million for the quarter-final against Belgium.

Following further research from the BBC, which showed the quarter-final clash, BBC Wales
announced that the total audience across all broadcast outlets for the match with Belgium
was around 2 million, around 70 per cent of the population. Following the initial reported
television figure, the number was boosted by online viewing through BBC iPlayer and the
estimation of 250,000 people (almost 10 per cent of adults in Wales) watching the match in a
bar or pub.

The progress of the smaller nations might not have brought the gravitas of viewing numbers
that some larger nations would have offered had they gone deeper into the tournament, but
it did create plenty of records in those individual countries.

Iceland’s remarkable run to the quarter-finals brought a country with a population of just
over 330,000 to a standstill as Sjónvarp Símans, the tournament broadcaster in Iceland,
achieved a viewing share of 99.8-per-cent for the group stage victory over Austria, following
a 98.9-per-cent viewing share in the previous match with Hungary. The broadcaster also
gained online prominence during Euro 2016 as commentator Gudmundur Benediktsson’s
passionate and fevered celebrations of Iceland goals went viral on social media.

As well as Iceland, other nations broke records for their Euro 2016 coverage.
RTE received the biggest Irish TV audience of the year for its coverage of Ireland’s deciding
group match victory over Italy, peaking at 1.45 million (a 73.6-per-cent share). The
subsequent round-of-16 defeat to France didn’t match the number of viewers, but it did
record a share of 83 per cent. ORF recorded a peak of over 1.7 million viewers for each
of Austria’s first two games in the country’s second-ever appearance in a European finals
tournament. Poland also achieved its highest TV audience of all time for the quarter-final
with Portugal with 16 million viewers for the game, with an 86.6-per-cent share. Elsewhere,
the average viewership for the tournament in the USA was down on figures recorded for the
31-game Euro 2012, with ESPN averaging 997,392 viewers per match in the 51-game 2016
tournament, compared to 1,133,484 four years earlier.

Ahead of the final, Uefa predicted an average global live match viewership of over 300
million for the match, more than previous European Championship finals. This sort of

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predicted figure can be flawed due to differences in audience measurement methods across
territories, and a closer look at the figures in major European markets shows that with the
exception of finalists France, there was a dip in viewers for the final itself compared to the
2014 Fifa World Cup final between Germany and Argentina. Both of those matches kicked
off at the same time in Europe, both finished 0-0 before being settled in extra-time and both
featured a global superstar (in either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo), but the 2014
showpiece match comfortably outperformed the 2016 final in Paris. Even though the
tournament length was similar to that of a World Cup because of the extra matches, the
figures would appear to show that the World Cup still holds a greater status as a major
soccer competition.

The tournament was also criticised by experts for not being exciting on the pitch with the
standard of soccer not always befitting a major international tournament, meaning viewers
could have turned off earlier in the competition and didn’t hold interest all the way through to
the final. While the expanded tournament is obviously beneficial for smaller nations and their
broadcasters, and gives established territories and rights holders more matches to
broadcast, Uefa has be careful to ensure the product on the pitch is something people want
to watch and that a muddled group stage format doesn’t confuse consumers and make them
turn off before the tournament ‘gets going.’

While there were plenty of format changes for the 2016 event, the next European
Championships in 2020 will have an even more radical difference, with matches being
hosted across the continent rather than in just one or two host nations. While this could
impact on the boost that viewing numbers usually receive in the tournament host nation,
Uefa will hope that similar uplifts could occur across Europe given the wide selection of
hosts. With the tournament being in France, there was a 6.2-per-cent rise in viewing figures
for prime-time matches in the competition compared to Euro 2012, with a 25.4-per-cent rise
for quarter-finals and semi-finals. Uefa will hope that this sort of growth will be especially
prevalent in smaller soccer territories chosen to host matches in 2020 such as Romania,
Hungary and Azerbaijan. With the extra viewers in smaller territories and the improvement in
the Asian market, the expanded Euro 2016 can be considered a success, but challenges do
remain for Uefa to make sure the next tournament across the continent can engage fans
through to the end as the Fifa World Cup can.

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