The Qatar World Cup Has Crossed One Billion Views In The Middle East And North Africa

The Arab version of the FIFA World Cup, which is currently being held in Qatar, continues to break records at all levels, especially with regard to television viewership. The latest data, issued by the "BeIN Media Group", revealed that the opening ceremony and the matches of the first round of the group stage were watched by one billion viewers in the Middle East and North Africa region.

The group also stated that the achieved viewership rates up to the moment indicate an increase of 113% compared to what was recorded in the matches of the same round of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which confirms the Arabs’ keenness to celebrate and follow the first “World Cup” version on the Arab territories.

The opening ceremony and the Saudi match steal the spotlight

"The preliminary statistics of the viewership confirm the unprecedented turnout of football fans in the region for the tournament," the statement said. In the details of the views, the statement indicated that "the total number of viewers who watched the matches of the first round of the group stage of the tournament exceeded 907 million people, and the number of followers of the opening match that brought together the Qatari and Ecuadorian teams reached 99.24 million viewers, an increase of 86% compared to the opening match of the last edition of the championship.

Likewise, the Netherlands-Senegal match in Group A was watched by 44.6 million people, while Iran's opening match, in which they were defeated by England 6-2, recorded 80.7 million viewers, including 60% of the adult population in Iran.

As for the second most watched match in the tournament so far, it was the historic victory of the Saudi national team over Argentina 2-1, which attracted 99.3 million viewers, including about 18 million adult viewers from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or 71% of the adult population in the Kingdom. , who follow the distinguished performance of the Falcons.

Record views of Morocco and Tunisia

57.2 million people watched the opening match of the Moroccan national team in Group F, which ended in a goalless draw against the Croatian national team, the runners-up of the last edition of the tournament, while another 26.7 million watched the match of the Canadian national team in its expected return to the world football arena, which ended with a loss with a single goal against the Belgian national team.

As for the Tunisia-Denmark match, in the fourth group, it recorded 63.4 million viewers in the region, including 75% of the total adults in Tunisia, and the match ended in a goalless draw.

While the number of followers of the Poland-Mexico match in Group C, which ended in a goalless draw, reached 30.7 million viewers.

Brazil and Cristiano have a share of the "cake" numbers

The match between Brazil and Serbia in Group G, which ended in favor of Brazil (2-0), is the third most-watched match in the tournament so far, with a number of 95.6 million viewers.

Whereas 11.1 million people followed the second match of the same group, in which Switzerland beat Cameroon 1-0.

As expected, the new historic achievement of Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, who became the first player to score in 5 consecutive editions of the World Football Championship, received a very high viewership, as more than 64 million viewers watched the match, while 8.1 million people followed the match that preceded it on the same day between Uruguay and South Korea.

Exceptional version

And the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) announced a few days ago that the world was on a date with an exceptional version that surpassed the previous versions, in terms of viewership rates, in all countries of the globe.

A group of countries around the world recorded numbers that they had never reached before, whether in global football events or in various events that were broadcast on television.

The last records related to the event were in Ecuador, where the opening ceremony and the opening match that brought together the host Qatar and the Ecuadorian national team were watched by more than 3.6 million people, more than double the number of views achieved at the opening of the previous edition in Russia.

The same thing happened in Brazil. The Brazilian TV Globo network announced that it had recorded an unprecedented number of viewers for the opening ceremony and match after it reached 24.36 million viewers, or more than 6% of the number that was achieved in the opening match of the last edition 4 years ago.

On the European continent, and despite all the campaigns trying to "disrupt" the first World Cup to be held on Arab soil, the Europeans were on a date with recording unprecedented numbers in terms of television views for this edition.

The same thing happened in France, which set a record for watching the opening match broadcast on the French channel “TF1”. The latter announced that 5.05 million people watched the event on television, which represents an increase of more than 30% from the number recorded in the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Russia. The opening ceremony set another record of 4.08 million viewers, outperforming the views of the rugby match that brought together France and Japan.

Likewise, more than 12 million viewers watched the France-Australia match in the first group match, which is the highest viewership rate recorded this year in the country.

Turning to the south of the old continent, and exactly to Italy, the largest absentee from this global event, more than 4.66 million people in the country were glued to the television screens to watch the opening match, by a large margin more than those who watched the opening match of the last edition in Russia, which then recorded 3.59 million followers.

In Spain, viewership for the opening ceremony was 13% of the total viewership in the country, higher than what was recorded for the same event in the previous edition.

In turn, the Dutch broadcasting network "NPO1" (NPO1) announced that it had recorded the highest viewership this November on the occasion of the Senegal-Netherlands match, as it was watched by 4.16 million people.