The global TV audience for this year's FIFA World Cup in Brazil "looks to have been marginally higher than that for the 2010 tournament in South Africa," according to David Owen of INSIDE THE GAMES. U.S.-based sports research consultancy Futures Sport+Entertainment Managing Dir of Media Brands Kevin Alavy said the global audience for Brazil 2014 was "up slightly" on South Africa 2010. Alavy's comments appear to "square well" with what FIFA Dir of TV Niclas Ericson "has already intimated." Ericson said, "We are optimistic it will be higher than 2010. We had very, very good figures across the Americas and Europe, and we are encouraged by what we saw in Asia." Given that the average in-home global audience for each live match during the 2010 World Cup was 188.4 million, an increase of 6% from '06, Alavy's unofficial assessment suggests that "Brazil 2014 may come close to breaking through the 200 million barrier." The Brazilian time-zone "worked well in Europe," especially in countries like the U.K. and Portugal. In spite of England's failure to win a single 2014 World Cup game, Alavy said that U.K. numbers "were up compared to 2010, when the average live match audience was 5.3 million and the peak match audience was 17.9 million." The U.S., where audience reach rose 19% from '06-10, "was a further bright spot." FIFA has already disclosed that an audience of 11.1 million watched the U.S. vs. Ghana clash on ESPN, "with a further 4.8 million viewing Univisión's Spanish coverage" in the U.S. Alavy: "It becomes bigger and bigger with each World Cup that passes" (INSIDE THE GAMES, 10/6).
