Commentary
Are World Cup Fans Really Passionate About Mobile?
- by Mark Walsh @markfwal, June 3, 2010
The World Cup and mobile phones would seem to be a match made in heaven. The world's biggest sporting event meets the world's most ubiquitous portable media device. And with 64 games
scheduled at all times of day throughout the month-long tournament, mobile offers the perfect option for checking scores or watching matches stealthily at work or during lunch.
In data released today, Nielsen found 21% of fans globally who plan to follow the World Cup would track the
tournament at least partly on the Internet via their mobile devices and 9% through mobile applications. "When asked how they intend to follow the World Cup, fans chose mobile with surprising
regularity," noted Roger Entner, who heads mobile research at Nielsen, in a blog post on the survey findings.
But given the nearly 5 billion mobile devices globally, the spread of
smartphones and mobile data services in the last two years, and the fact that mobile devices have become the primary means of accessing the Internet, 21% doesn't seem that impressive to me. I wouldn't
have been surprised if the proportion was one-third or higher, especially in soccer- (or football-) loving regions like Latin America, Europe and Africa.
In Brazil, the most winning
World Cup nation with five titles, the same 21% as globally planned to track the event on mobile. And in Argentina -- the rival soccer power on the continent -- only 10% will go mobile to keep up with
the World Cup.
In the Middle East and Africa, the figures were somewhat higher, with between 22% and 30% of fans planning to use mobile devices as a way to get World Cup information.
That higher interest level there may be due in part to the tournament being hosted by an African nation, South Africa, for the first time.
But the figures were surprisingly anemic in
Europe, where the majority of the world's top-ranked soccer nations are located. Only 3% of fans in soccer powers like Germany and Spain, respectively, cited mobile as a means of tracking World Cup
action. Ireland was tops at 18%.
Conversely, interest in the U.S., where professional soccer sits well behind (American) football, baseball, basketball and hockey, was relatively high,
with 23% expecting to follow the World Cup on mobile. It could be U.S. fans are hoping for a repeat performance of Englad's upset by the U.S. in the 1950 World Cup when the two countries meet June 12.
Nielsen separately found that the less likely people are to watch the live broadcast of games on TV, the more likely they are to seek out information on their mobile phone. But there
was no similar correlation between watching World Cup highlights or delayed broadcasts and likely mobile use. "This indicates that people want to know about the games immediately and not get rid of
the television viewing experience," according to Entner.
Mark Walsh can be reached at walsh@mediapost.com
Interesting...I think there are two reasons...
Nielsen found that the less likely people are to watch live the more likely they are to seek out info on the mobile phone...so maybe the converse is true...the more people are willing to watch live the less they care about the mobile experience?
Also the rest of the world, although more mobile sophisticated, relies more on feature phones than the US, which has 1/ 4 people with smart phones...in that area we lead the curve...
I would imagine that superfan nations such as Argentina and the majority of Europe will have a much more open policy toward letting fans watch the games during business hours, meaning there's less need to rely on a mobile device. Conversely, here in the U.S., where futbol is not recognized as a primary sport, the higher mobile reliance makes sense.
I agree with David. In countries with low percentages following World Cup via mobile devices, it is likely consumption of World Cup will be primarily in the form of TV broadcasts. I believe 1 out of 5 fans following on mobile devices is a significant number. It will be interesting to see if that percentage is higher in 2014.
I can offer a few possible reasons for the relatively low numbers of those who said they would follow the World Cup on mobile devices.
First of all, anyone who follows the sport knows that televised games rarely use anything but long cover shots, with very few of the close-ups that we Americans are used to with our sports. Seeing anything worthwhile on a tiny mobile device screen is futile at best.
Second, the matches will be shown on just about every TV screen available, both public and private. It's literally impossible NOT to see the matches on screens everywhere you go. So there's little need to resort to a mobile device.
And finally, seeing just the results and scores is generally an "American thing". Soccer is all about actually watching the action unfold. Scores are usually very low, compared to our sports, so while hearing that one team beat another, 1 - 0, might tell you a lot about what happened in a baseball game, it is almost useless when checking on a soccer result.
The rest of the world practically shuts down to watch this month long event. It is an experience - the only thing we have that is similar is the Super Bowl. I am heading to South Africa next Saturday and cannot wait.