Premier League in China
Daniel Finkelstein says here and here that 30m people in China watch the UK premiership on TV, 10 times more than in the UK, and this is one of the reasons why he isn't completely opposed to having games overseas. I think the idea is bonkers, but ignoring that I think those figures are wrong too.I'm always sceptical when sporting events (or other blockbuster events) quote global viewing figures. Often these are massively over-inflated by sponsors, sometimes even just referring to the number of TV Sets that could - if they wered tuned in to it - pick up the event. When I investigated, for instance, the Boat Race's claim of 400m viewers, I found that it could be as low as 5m (outside the UK), but might be as high as 80m.
Anyway much the same is true for Premiership football. Some claims have been 100m to 300m viewers, which just has 'made up' all over it - that would be a huge proportion of the population. There is more support for the 30m, in fact I would go as far as saying I think some matches probably did get that many viewers. However it should be noted that this was when it was free-to-air, something that isn't true in the UK. Since the start of this season it has been on subscription, and according to this story audience numbers have fallen to 20,000.
That clearly underestimates the number of fans in China; some simply won't be able to afford it whilst many more will watch the PPV service on the internet. But it perhaps suggests the financial case for playing games outside the UK is no better than the sporting case.
Anyway, I'd also like to say that someone reading this post is my 150 millionth reader!
Labels: Advertising claims that on the face of it seem bold, Football
posted by Matthew @ 2/10/2008 11:30:00 AM
Comments: 1
