Broadcasting FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015 tournament has paid off for Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc FOXA.
Fox Sports Network has witnessed escalating viewership as the tournament progressed, indeed much to the pleasure of the sponsors. The first semi-final match between the USA and Germany that had an average audience of 8.4 million, became the highest watched football world cup semi-final in the United States. USA won 2-0 and has advanced to the finals where it will face defending champions Japan on Jul 5, at the BC Place Stadium, Vancouver.
The match had the highest peak audience of 12.1 million, dwarfing the 8.1 million peak audience recorded at the USA-China quarterfinals. Moreover, the 8.4 million viewership broke the earlier record of 5.7 million during the USA-China quarter final match held on Jun 26. It now has the third highest rating behind the 1999 USA-China Women’s World Cup final (17.9 million) and 2011 USA-Japan Women’s World Cup final (13.5 million).
As per sources, this has made the USA-Germany match the second-most viewed Fox broadcast in the key 18-49 demographic after the season finale of Empire aired on Mar 18, 2015 that had a viewership of 21.1 million. Moreover, Fox Sports Go saw a record 166,000 people streaming the match live.
In 2010, it looked like a risky gamble when Twenty-First Century Fox in partnership with Comcast Corporation CMCSA owned Spanish-language network Telemundo shelled out $1 billion to have the rights to the FIFA events from 2015 to 2022. This reflected a substantial rise from the combined cost of $425 million paid by The Walt Disney Company’s DIS ESPN ($100 million) and Univision ($325 million) for the 2010-2014 events. 21st century Fox had paid $400 million while Telemundo shelled out $600 million.
At the time, soccer was relatively less popular in America than in Europe and other parts of the world. Moreover, women’s edition of the game was still lesser popular.
However, things have changed drastically in the last five years. Apart from live coverage becoming excessively valuable, soccer started gaining tremendous popularity, especially after the national team made it to the Round 16 of 2014 FIFA Men’s World Cup held in Brazil. Moreover, the women’s edition has started to garner sizable attraction globally as reflected in rising viewership for 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
All matches in the tournament had an average of 1.3 million viewers across FOX, FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2.
With USA contenting Japan in the final, 21st Century Fox is likely to conclude the tournament coverage on a high note. Viewership is expected to be better than the semi-final ratings. This will set the rhythm for the Men’s World Cup to be broadcasted by the company in 2022. 21st Century Fox recently acquired the telecast rights for 2026 World Cup.
Rising viewers guarantees increase in sponsorships and in turn, higher advertising revenues. Moreover, broadcasting soccer tournaments will help 21st Century Fox to expand the reach of its sports channels that currently has a relatively smaller audience compared to ESPN.
At present, Twenty-First Century Fox carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in media sector is AMC Networks Inc. AMCX, which sports a Zacks Rank#1 (Strong Buy).
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