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70% of the world’s football fans follow the Barclays Premier League
Cologne, 12 October 2011. The Barclays Premier League is one of THE drivers of worldwide football interest – according to new research from SPORT+MARKT, the leading sport business research consultancy. Global following of England’s top flight is projected at 1.46 billion – or 70% of the world’s estimated 2.08 billion football fans – extrapolated data from Sponsoring21+, the most in-depth sport sponsorship study ever conducted*, has shown. Of those, 615 million are supporters of one of the League’s 20 clubs.
The Premier League is even more of a driving force for football interest in its home market, the United Kingdom. Of 21.4 million enthusiasts of the game, 92% follow the Premier League. Figures are also impressive in key international markets such as China and the USA: 64% of Chinese football fans follow the League closely, while half of the United States of American’s growing soccer-loving community are absorbed by the goings on across the Atlantic.
Global TV audience hits 4.7 billion
In terms of annual domestic sporting competition, the exposure offered by the Premier League is unprecedented. Last season, television coverage of its matches reached 643 million homes around the world, up 11% from 580 million in 2009/10. Meanwhile, SPORT+MARKT’s analysts estimate the total cumulative in-home TV audience shot up from 2.9 to 3.9 billion during that time. When added to the estimated 777 million out of home viewers, that takes the total Premier League audience last term to 4.7 billion.
“The explanation for this remarkable increase lies largely in the redistribution of international rights for the start of the new three year broadcast term last year,” Andrew Walsh, Head of International Affairs at SPORT+MARKT, said. “One of the main drivers of that development was the switch of the League’s broadcast rights from a Pay TV broadcaster to terrestrial coverage in China which really has burst open the floodgates in terms of the Premier League’s popularity in the world’s most populous and fastest-growing market.”
TV exposure up 65% on 2009/10
SPORT+MARKT calculates the average Premier League Club delivered £10 million of media value for their main shirt sponsor with 450,000 seconds of brand exposure, equivalent to more than 15,000 30-second TV advertising spots. In total, the League clocked up 185,000 hours of TV coverage in 2010/11, an increase of 65% on the previous campaign, with overall worldwide exposure per club of over 565 hours.
The new Sponsoring 21+ data also shows that the profile of football fans is continuing to evolve. In the USA and China, for example, the average Premier League devotee is a well-educated young male within the medium to high income bracket. In the UK, meanwhile, approximately one third of the division’s fans are female – proving the old image of a men-only domain is now well and truly redundant.
Two of the key selling points of English football’s top division are the unique passion of its fans and the international makeup of the League itself. No fewer than 71 nations were represented in the Premier League last season with star players from as far afield as Oman and Benin taking part. And, with 92.2% utilisation of stadia seating across the 20 clubs and an increase in the average attendance from 34,151 in 2009/10 to 35,356 last term, the fans’ appetite for top-flight English football is as strong as ever.
*SPORT+MARKT Sponsoring21+ is a global market research study carried out in 36 countries globally, surveying 1,000 16-69 year old respondents per market. Click here to view the full press release.
Kontakt
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Ilka Wendlandt
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ilka.wendlandt@sportundmarkt.com
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