The Level of Fandom: Are World Cup Soccer Fans the Most Fanatic?

We’ve all seen it. The face paint, the wigs, the ridiculous outfits and uncontrollable emotions in the stands or behind the television, fanatics are real, they are loyal, and they vary by all types of sports. These fanatics come out to support their teams during big events like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL but with the conclusion of the World Cup, it’s got us wondering…which fans are the craziest about their sport? According to the latest data from Slingbox, a device that lets anyone watch and control their cable or satellite TV on the go from their computers, tablets, and smartphones, suggests that World Cup soccer fans are far more fanatical about watching their sport live on TV compared to other sports fans. Using a sample of 100,000 Slingbox viewers over the time frame of one week from June 9-15 to see how many real-time viewers watched their sport despite not being seated in front of their living room TV, it was found that World Cup Soccer fans are far more fanatical about watching their sport live compared to any other sports fans. FIFA World Cup was at the lead with 18.1% of fans tuning in, powering over NBA Finals viewers at 4.5%, U.S. Open Golf at 1.7%, and NHL Stanley Cup Hockey at 0.9%. This shows that World Cups soccer fans are 4x more fanatical than NBA fans, 11x more compared to Golf fans, and up to 21x more fanatical than NHL fans. Shocked? Not entirely. The ratings have been increasingly going up over the years and we have seen a 26% increase since 2010, Facebook had 280 million user interactions in regards to the World Cup-making it the most talked about sports event on Facebook yet, and the amount of memes I have seen is enough to have me convinced.

Be sure to be prepared to watch all of your favorite sport events on the go using Slingbox and be sure you don’t miss a thing. As a wrap, congrats to Germany on taking the title of World Cup Champions this year and enjoy some of our favorite memes from this season.