Fifa World Cup final attracted 32 million digital viewers from India

The final between Argentina and France, played at Lusail Stadium on Sunday saw a viewership of 32 million in India digitally. This is the first time that Argentina has won a Fifa World Cup since 1986.

Jio Cinema, an over-the-top streaming service, owned by Viacom18, a subsidiary of TV18 said digital viewership crossed television numbers for the first time for a global marquee sports event. The company said that this was about 40 billion minutes of watch time being clocked across its channel Sports18 and the OTT platform.

“The tournament became the most-watched global sports event on digital where India has not participated. This demonstrates the power of digital and the preference viewers and fans have shown to consume their favourite events, which will now see Paris Saint-Germain teammates and Fifa World Cup Golden Boot winner Kylian Mbappe and Fifa World Cup and Golden Ball winner Lionel Messi join forces in the Ligue1,“ said Viacom18 Sports‘ CEO Anil Jayaraj.

The company said it had about 50 brands across categories like e-commerce, banking, financial services, auto, fashion, hospitality and fintech advertised across television and digital.

The company said, overall, over 110 million viewers consumed their football content on the digital medium, making India one of the highest digital viewership markets for the Fifa World Cup.

According to Fifa’s official figures, in 2018, a combined 3.572 billion viewers – more than half of the global population aged four and over – tuned in to the official broadcast coverage of the entire world cup. The federation had then said that the final between France and Croatia attracted a combined global audience of 1.12 billion, comprising 884.37 million viewers tuning in to linear TV coverage and a further 231.82 million out-of-home and digital-only viewers.