Asian markets lead global online sports consumption

Online is now the second most popular method of sports consumption overall. However by comparison, only 63 per cent of viewers reported online engagement in the US and 48 per cent in France.

"What we see moving forward is that TV will still be a major part of sports consumption, but digital consumption will lead the growth as a whole, especially in Asia,” said Tim Holland, MD, Perform APAC. “Already, 37 per cent of Chinese fans are accessing sports on their mobile devices once a day and this is again the highest we see across all markets.”

India and Indonesia are also the two markets with the highest proportion of fans that have paid to watch via a pay TV subscription. China, India and Brazil represent the markets with the greatest proportion of pay-per-view users, with one in four fans in China paying to watch via this method in the last 12 months.

According to Holland, Asian markets ranked the highest among the markets researched when it came to consuming sports, and India led the pack with 19 hours spent consuming sports on a weekly basis.

The 2013 Global Sports Media Consumption report covers fourteen global markets, ten of which, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Spain and the USA were studied last year. India, Indonesia, Japan and Turkey are covered for the first time this year. In all markets approximately 1,000 interviews were conducted online in February 2013.

Country Profile: Indonesia

There are 33 million sports fans across Indonesia, which means that 9 out of 10 people in the country report watching a sport. Television is the number one method to follow sport in the country. Indonesians spend just over 11 hours on average consuming sport in a week. About 58 per cent of fans watch sport online via a personal computer, while 51 per cent reported watching sport on a mobile device. Of the 1000 people quizzed, 57 per cent of fans said they followed sport on social networking sites, with YouTube being their top choice.

Not surprisingly, football (63 per cent) is the most followed sport on the internet, followed by badminton (55 per cent).

Top 10 sports followed in Indonesia:

Country Profile: China

China has 301 million sports fans with 97 per cent of adult population claiming to follow sport in 2013. Television is the number one method to follow sport. However, 82 per cent of fans said they followed sport online while 61 per cent kept track via print press. In China, 60 per cent watch sport online via a mobile device and 41 per cent follow sport on social networking sites. Renren is the number one platform to follow sport. Surprisingly, basketball (55 per cent) and Table Tennis (55 per cent) are the most consumed sport in China, followed by Badminton (54 per cent) and swimming (46 per cent).

Top 10 followed sports in China:

Country Profile: India

India has 84 million sport followers with 79 per cent following cricket. Of these, 67 per cent reported watching sport online via a mobile device. However, television continues to be the number one medium. According to the report, 63 per cent said they followed sport via a social networking site with most favouring Facebook. 85 per cent of fans said they followed sport on the print platform, while 25 per cent reported watching it on an internet connected television. Football has garnered a strong fan base in the country with 48 per cent of internet users actively following football. Tennis (49 per cent) and Badminton (41 per cent) are equally popular.

Top ten followed sports in India: