Uefa looking to exploit American market during the Euro's.

In recent years, viewing figures for televised sports have suffered a downward trend. The causes for this are two-fold: the proliferation of televised sport and sport channels, and the shift from free-to-air to pay-TV. Particularly during the global financial crisis of 2008, the collapse in advertising revenue made it difficult for free-to-air channels to compete with high-bidding pay-TV channels.

However, fear not! Football is as popular as ever and more so: The live cumulative average audience for the 2010 World Cup was Eight-billion, and each game at Euro 2012 is expected to draw an average world-wide audience of 150million viewers.

If such figures stack up, it will make Euro 2012 a ratings spectacular equal to, or greater, than if each match were a Champion’s League Final; a match which is already more popular than the NFL Super Bowl.

FIFA’s average earnings per match in South Africa was $56.7million while the same for matches in Poland and Ukraine is set to be $51.6million. Perhaps this reflects the widely held view that if the FIFA World Cup has the most prestige attached, then the UEFA European Cup has the better quality.

‘We would never claim to be bigger than the World Cup… But you can see in certain territories, if your own national team is doing well you get some very good numbers,’ said David Taylor, chief executive of UEFA Events. ‘You can see it is mega… when we are talking to sponsors and others, they are interested in the wider global impact.’

Kick-off times in South Africa were tailored to suit the Asian market, and this year UEFA has made sure that America can enjoy Euro 2012, with kick-off times conglomerating around their early afternoon. In 1998, the USA was ranked 23rd in the world’s largest football markets, but has now grown to 7th in 2010. Clearly, UEFA is hoping to tap into the potential growth areas away from the traditional football-loving but saturated South American and European markets.

Traditionally, the two most watched teams at the World Cup have been Brazil and England. Brazil are anticipated for playing attractive ‘samba’ style football, while England benefits from the ‘home of football’ moniker and the global appeal of the Premier League. Alas, Brazil will not be featuring at Euro 2012, but the team who had the largest average audience after Brazil in South Africa - Germany, will be. The diversity in their team, which boosted interest from nations like Ghana, Poland and Turkey, contributed to their appeal.

So with England set to kick off a few hours away, we can expect a massive audience for the kick off against France from across the world.

By Art Bugmann