Opinion: Fifa World Cup Fans Will Tune In Regardless

“World Cup data says sport is more powerful than politics…even angry fans will watch”

SMG Insight, partners of the International Marketing Campaign of the Year Award at the BT Sport Industry Awards, have delved into their vault of data – collected every day in markets around the world for its YouGov SportsIndex service – to look out how the public in major territories are gearing up for the FIFA World Cup…

Since it’s only 50 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup in Russia, we thought we’d take the opportunity to showcase some of the global data which our new SportsIndex service is capturing.

SportsIndex is a tool which tracks leagues and events in a wide variety of sports across major markets every day. We used it to take a look at how the World Cup is performing as organisers and sponsors gear up their efforts to engage fans.

Given FIFA’s troubled recent history, it’s not a huge surprise to hear that the World Cup hasn’t been performing in the way we’d expect for the planet’s second biggest sporting event. In fact, in our 2017 SportsIndex Buzz Report, the World Cup was the only sports property of 60 we tracked that created more negative chatter than positive.

That report only covers the UK, however, so let’s take a wider view now and take in some of the other big sports markets too – in this case the US, China and Australia. That means we’re pulling data from two countries which didn’t qualify to compete this summer (China and the US), and two that did.

The chart below shows how Buzz (a net metric of positive minus negative chatter around a property) around the World Cup has changed over the past few weeks.

As you can see, it’s fair to say that even in those countries who will be represented in Russia, public excitement has not yet exploded.

As you might expect, the two nations where the biggest moves have been recorded are the qualifiers – but here there is a distinct divergence. Aussies – to use the local vernacular – are stoked while Brits have become less excited as the World Cup has got closer.

Is it simply a matter of the prospects of their respective international teams? Perhaps – but fans of the England team (no other home nation qualified) are hopeless optimists. The England national side, in the face of some hugely disappointing tournament results, remains one of the most resilient properties we monitor. And their form has been quietly solid in the run-up to the tournament.

Meanwhile, Australia have failed to win either of their two games since qualification. And they are 21 places behind England in the Fifa rankings – although their tournament performances have been no worse than England’s.

In fact, experience tells us that we would usually expect the trend-line in the UK to mirror that of Australia’s at around this point. The reason it’s not doing that is politics – and the frosty diplomatic relationship which has developed between Russia and Britain since the poisoning of a Russian defector on British shores in early March (refer back to the graph to see when Buzz starts to tail off).

But positive chatter, while an important metric for sponsors and organisers, isn’t the be all and end all. Let’s look at our Satisfaction metric across the globe – which asks respondents if they are likely to give up time to follow an event.

This data points a slightly different picture.

Despite the negative chatter in the UK, the proportion of people intending to watch the World Cup remains relatively steady. Satisfaction has steadily risen in Australia, matching the country’s Buzz trend, and, since mid-March, is on the rise again in China, responding to the start of the country’s domestic league.

The two charts illustrate the importance of the full picture when it comes to using data and insight to inform strategy. In isolation, the UK’s Buzz metric paint a gloomy picture for World Cup sponsors in that market. In light of other metrics, however, it’s possible to see how the UK remains a prime territory for activation.

But did you spot the main insight from the data? If it’s positive Buzz and high Satisfaction you want, it’s time to learn Mandarin….