The recent World Cup was a significant success for sports streaming in Japan, as millions of fans tuned in to watch the games online. The surge in streaming viewership was attributed to the widespread availability of high-quality streaming platforms in Japan and the increasing popularity of online sports coverage in general.
World Cup Boosted Japan Sports Streaming
A report from Nikkei Asia tells us that the World Cup soccer tournament boosted online sports streaming in Japan after a slow start, drawing record numbers of viewers while TV networks stepped back.
The same report tells us that on the day of the Japan-Spain match, Japanese streaming platform Abema recorded an all-time high of 17 million daily viewers. Over the three days of group stage games, including Samurai Blue, it drew a total of more than 41 million viewers.
Sports had mainly been the domain of television networks in Japan. For this year's World Cup, however, three big commercial broadcasters chose not to pay to air live games, giving streaming platforms like Abema an opening.
Only an average of 35.3% of households in the greater Tokyo area tuned in to public broadcaster NHK for the Japan-Germany game, according to Video Research. The local agency points out that this is the lowest rating for Japan's opening World Cup match since the team's tournament debut in 1998.
The Nikkei report tells us that sports broadcasts attract regular viewers, but airing them live is expensive. Broadcast rights to this year's World Cup are estimated to have cost around 20 billion yen ($150 million at current rates) in Japan. One securities analyst says Abema likely spent around 7 billion to 8 billion yen of that total.
Global Numbers
According to FIFA, more than half of the world's population watched the 2018 World Cup, making it the most widely viewed event in the tournament's history. A total of 3.572 billion people tuned in to watch at least one minute of the event, with 1.12 billion viewers watching the final match between France and Croatia.
The 2018 World Cup also set a record for digital viewership, with a total of 6.1 billion video views and 3.5 billion visits to the official tournament website.
The 2022 World Cup has already shattered multiple viewing records, particularly in the United States. According to Fast Company, the United States' group-stage encounter versus England was the most-watched men's soccer match ever on American television, with a peak audience of 19.65 million people on Fox.
Argentina's match against Mexico on Telemundo the next day became the most-watched Spanish-language group-stage match in US history. It is not surprising the same happened in Japan.
The success of the World Cup streaming in Japan is expected to have a lasting impact on the country's sports media industry as more and more people turn to online platforms for their sports coverage. It remains to be seen how this trend will continue in the future, but for now, it appears that sports streaming is here to stay in Japan.
