NBCUniversal, which owns the Spanish language television arm Telemundo, is gearing up to cover the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015. The event will be kicked off by an opening match between host Canada and China on Jun 6, 2015. Notably, NBCUniversal is a unit of Comcast Corporation CMCSA.
In Feb 2015, FIFA had awarded World Cup broadcasting rights to Fox Sports and NBCUniversal's Telemundo through 2026. As per FIFA, Telemundo has been granted the rights to broadcast all major tournaments like FIFA Women’s World Cups, Confederations Cups and youth World Cups till 2026.
The U.S. women soccer team holds the second position as per FIFA rankings, as of Mar 27. This speaks volumes about the team’s popularity and the growing interest people are taking in the game. Moreover this time, the viewer-friendly time zone should make it easy to follow the games.
Also hinting at the team’s immense popularity is the viewership figures from the 2011 world cup match between the U.S. and Japan. Interestingly, the match had drawn as many as 13.5 million viewers.
According to ESPN, the match was among the most-watched soccer telecast ever in the U.S. on the network. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the event had scaled to the position of the sixth most-viewed soccer telecast ever. It had also set a new record on Twitter by attracting the maximum number of tweets per second.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup has also been a massive hit in the U.S. According to ESPN, the head-off between U.S. and Portugal attracted more than 25 million viewers. Also, the final in the series was between Germany and Argentina which was watched by nearly 26.5 million people in the U.S.
It is clear from the above discussions that the 2015 Women’s World Cup will provide significant impetus to Telemundo. Meanwhile, the acquisition of NBCUniversal has placed Comcast as a media powerhouse, serving one-fourth of the U.S. pay-TV households.
In 2014, NBCUniversal had covered the Sochi Winter Olympic Games held in Russia. The company had invested nearly $775 million for broadcasting the live series in the U.S., garnering nearly $1.1 billion from it.
Comcast currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Stocks to Consider
Better-ranked stocks in the same space include Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation NTT, Shenandoah Telecommunications Co. SHEN and TELUS Corporation TU. All these stocks hold a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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