Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Sydney: The AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015 is proving to be one of the most exciting continental sports competitions, as the success of the 23-day premier football competition – which has just finished its first knockout stage – is notably reflected by impressive attendance and television viewership figures, not to mention the social media reach.
Total attendance figures in the AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015 are over half a million and have already surpassed the final figure reached in the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011. After the completion of the quarter-finals matches, a total of 503,359 fans have attended the matches, rapidly passing the total of 421,000 four years ago. Average attendances following the final quarter-finals match stand at around 18,000.
With the initial estimation putting the numbers at a total of half a million attendees for the whole competition, Asian Football Confederation General Secretary Dato’ Alex Soosay remarked: ”The fans are making this a truly remarkable festival of football. The overwhelming support is heartening, and we have surpassed our initial attendance estimation with the finale still to come, so this is a wonderful achievement for Asian football.”
In addition to attendance, TV viewership is also on the up. Television viewership figures for the group stages of the AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015 in China, Japan and Korea Republic have hit record numbers.
In China, audiences grew as the national team advanced through the group stage with three consecutive wins. The average viewership in China for the Quarter Final against Australia was 27.5 million. The total reach, meaning the number of people who watched the quarter-final at any time, was 76 million on CCTV-5, and 95 million also including regional broadcasters.
The average viewership in the homeland of reigning champions Japan approached 50 million for the three matches on leading national broadcaster TV Asahi, whilst audiences also grew in the Korea Republic as their national team progressed through the group stage. Korea Republic’s third match against Australia achieved an average viewership of 4.6m on national broadcaster MBC, representing 10% of the population. The reach was 11.4 m or 23% of the population.
Viewership of DPR Korea matches in neighboring Korea Republic has also been high, with 658,000 people watching DPR Korea’s opening match against Uzbekistan.
There have also been incredible levels of activity on the AFC Asian Cup social media platforms since early January. The official Twitter feed #AC2015, which is running in five different languages, has reached over 1.8 billion, making it one of the most talked about Asian sporting events in history.
Video plays on YouTube have clocked over 3.3 million. Followers on Facebook have grown by 73% and posts on Weibo (Chinese social media) have reached over 187 million users.
The AFC Asian Cup is now moving into its semi-final phase, with matches between Korea Republic and Iraq (Stadium Australia Sydney), followed by United Arab Emirates and Australia (Newcastle Stadium), concluding with the third/fourth place match and final, so these figures are expected to increase significantly.
Dato’ Alex believes that the Asian Cup is living up to its billing as one of the continent’s greatest sports competition, and this has contributed to the growing interest among fans.
“We are focused on giving fans in Australia and around the world a great football experience, and the increasing support is further proof that we have been doing just that,” he said.
Photo: WSG