Dutch World Cup Game Watched By 10,000 on the Internet

Philip M. Stone October 11, 2004

Opening football rights to alternative platforms such as mobile phones and the Internet is a big deal for the European Union. So there was particular interest in The Netherlands where for the first time a match was shown in its entirety on the Internet as well as traditional television.

The game against Macedonia drew 10,000 Internet viewers, as opposed to 2.3 million on television.

The jury is still out whether the Internet viewing figures were a success although KPN, the national telecom that operated a special Internet site for the match, says that figure shows there could be a good Internet audience for football.

But The Netherlands is very technologically advanced so there is no guarantee that Internet programming success there would translate to success in other countries less “wired”. Some 68% of all Dutch households have a PC either fed by broadband or with a TV card, according to 2003 research. Only 4.6% of those PCs, however, are used to watch television.

In the land of the football-crazy Orange, a normal television audience for an important international game is at least 5 million, so even the television ratings were about half of those for an important European Cup qualifier. The 2003 survey found that 99% of Dutch households have at least one television.

Disenchantment with the national team’s non-performance over several major international tournaments may also be taking its ratings toll.

The 2-2 draw against Macedonia won’t help.

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