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| July 8, 2006 | Saturday | Jumadi-ul-Sani 11, 1427 |
Cup final to draw over billion viewers
BERLIN, July 7: World Cup organisers expect Sunday's final between Italy and France to draw a worldwide audience of more than one billion viewers.
''The TV rights have been sold to 200 countries,'' Wolfgang Niersbach, vice president of the local organising committee, said on Friday.
“I think 207 contracts have been signed. That's more than the UN has countries.”
The US Census Bureau estimates the current world population at 6.5 billion. The United Nations, meanwhile, has 191 member countries.
The cumulative audience is expected to exceed 30 billion.
The 2002 tournament in Japan and South Korea drew a cumulative TV audience of 28.8 billion in 213 countries, with 1.1 billion watching the final, according to FIFA. That was down from 33.4 billion at France 98, most likely due to the time difference in Asia.FIFA sold the TV rights for the tournament for US$1.22 billion.
Niersbach said there will be more than 3,000 journalists at Olympic Stadium to see the final between France and Italy: 1,800 print, 1,000 TV and radio, and 300 photographers. There will also be 66,000 fans at the game.
In total, the tournament has drawn 21,000 media. Niersbach says he believes the event can handle no more, although he acknowledged that decision rests with FIFA.
“I don't think you can create more media stands in the stadium. We have reached a point in the stadia where we indeed must work with certain limits.”
FIFA also reported record traffic on its Web site www.fifaworldcup.com.
There have been four billion page views, double the number in 2002. FIFA reports 48 million unique users, who have streamed 100 million video highlights.
Fans cast nearly one million ballots for the Best Young Player Award in the Web site.
Charles-Henry Contamine, head of FIFA's new media, said the decision to go with a “one-stop Web site with everything related to the FIFA World Cup,” from ticketing to accommodation, had helped the public.
“We’re delighted about that,” he said.—AP
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