Initiative's most recent ViewerTrack shows an average live audience of 63m individuals across 27 surveyed markets for the opening game between Germany and Costa Rica. Once audience data becomes available from all 50+ markets in our survey, Initiative expects the live global audience for the match to be in excess of 150m viewers.
An average live audience of 63m people represents an increase of 30% compared with the opening game between France and Senegal in World Cup 2002. Audience growth more than doubled in many countries, and more than tripled in Germany and the Netherlands.
The match drew a particularly large audience in the host nation Germany, which also had the honour of playing the opening game.
The average German audience for the live match broadcast was 20.1m people. Initial indications are that the match also attracted sizeable average live audiences in other major football markets, such as Poland (6.4m viewers), France (6m) and Italy (5.6m).
For the England v Paraguay game, ViewerTrack showed an average live in-home audience of 8.8m for the BBC One broadcast.
The match attracted the second-largest average audience for any sports event of 2006. Its viewing audience was nearly 1m people fewer than that recorded by the Champions League Final between Barcelona and Arsenal, which was watched at home by 9.6m Britons.
Audience figures for England v Paraguay were significantly lower than for England's opening matches in previous World Cups (12.6m for Sweden in 2002 and 11m for Tunisia in 1998).
Viewing figures were depressed by a combination of exceptionally hot weather, which encouraged fans to watch out-of-home, and what was arguably a very boring match.
These factors also help to explain the comparatively low viewing figures recorded for the game in other major markets. Of the eight matches played over the opening weekend, England v Paraguay was the least-watched game in Germany (7.2m viewers) and in Spain (0.4m).
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