Most Watched Game in the World?

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[yoda]

soccer/football world cup finals supposedly cross 1 billion.

[Chandan]

probably this was the most watched game ever IMO ... any estimates on the numbers ?

Perhaps, BB. I'd love to know what are the equations for football WC because that is the only event which could defeat it. I couldn't believe my ears when one of my friends, living in Switzerland at the moment, rang me up to tell me that they were watching this tournament there. And her family is one who just hate cricket. Whener she used to meet me here, she'd tell me kuch bhi baat karo, sirf cricket ko door rakhna!! And I heard that ESPN hit a jackpot with this tournament: ESPN hits jackpot: Bags Rs 200 cr from Twenty20 MUMBAI/DELHI: A glorious day for Indian cricket with a Twenty20 World Cup win over arch-rival Pakistan, will also go down in history for sports broadcaster ESPN-Star Sports (ESS) India as its richest day. ESS, which had gambled with an astonishing $1.1-billion bid and won the ICC rights for the next eight years last year, has earned Rs 200 crore only from the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup championship. Media buyers say the broadcaster has received close to Rs 110-115 crore through ad sales alone, which went through the roof for the finals with India playing Pakistan. Of the Rs 115-odd crore, Rs 40 crore has been contributed by sponsors, with the rest coming from stand-alone spot sales. ESS managed to sell spots for Monday’s India-Pakistan final Twenty20 match at an all-time high of Rs 7.5-10 lakh per 10 seconds. With TRPs expected to be in the range of an astronomical 15-20, advertisers have bought 10-second spots at the highest rates in the history of Indian TV. These include Amity, UTV’s Bindaas, United Breweries, Blue Dart, Fanta and Green Lam. In fact, media buyers said ESS had the potential to rake in even higher revenues, but since it did not anticipate such a high interest India-Pakistan final, the broadcaster sold three-fourths of its inventory before the tournament began. Even in that case, ESS has broken the record set by Ten Sports back in 2004. For the India-Pakistan friendship series, Ten had managed to sell 10-second spots for as high as Rs 5.5 lakh. ESS officials were not available for comment as they were out of the country. “ESS has managed to bring in significant money for the Twenty20 World Cup. This is commendable, considering the post World Cup anti-cricket syndrome that advertisers went through. It’s a huge comeback,†said M K Machaiah, general manager, Mindshare, the largest media buying agency in the country. Considering the three-hour format, and restricted spot availability of about 50-60 spots as compared to about 150 spots in a 50-over one day international, ESS has managed to charge almost double the amount for this series. Said Kajal Mailk, V-P, Lintas Interactions: “This is the third time in the history of Indian TV that ad rates have been redefined, the other two instances being what Star Plus had charged for Kaun Banega Crorepati and what Ten Sports had sold for the India-Pakistan Friendship series.†ESS had earned about Rs 140 crore from July 2007 to March 2008, which includes revenues from the NatWest series, ICC Twenty20 championship as well as the upcoming India tour of Australia in December. ---------------------------------------------------------------- So there you go!!!

[King]

Wow.... life has come full circle for the tv producers and the cricket team. Barely few months ago during the World cup 2007 advertisers were demanding the price be cut and the team had to go into hiding. Now everyone's happy and everyone gets to make money. Amazing turn around this. I think it seems bigger now because India beat Pakistan in the finals.

[Yuvraj4Captaincy]

No one in Australia even know about this match.IT GOT NO COVERAGE IN THE NEWSPAPERS. TalkIN about my OZ friends. They asked me if its a 50 over match and who is playing and wht tournament it is when I had it ON on channel 9. No one paid attention to Twenty20 here.