FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014 -- We're just returning from the extraordinary shores of Tahiti, the 7th stop on the 2014 Samsung Galaxy ASP World Championship Tour, and we're excited to announce the event generated the largest live audience in the history of professional surfing. The ASP webcast delivered 2.2 million hours of live competition and reached more than 12 million households on live television.
The surfing and sporting world took pause in watching the world's best surfers face 20+ foot swells at Teahupoo, one of the most dangerous and remote waves on the planet. The event was a tremendous challenge for the athletes and a big milestone for the ASP as we strive to connect more and more people globally to the action, adventure and athleticism of professional surfing, whenever and wherever IT'S ON!
It's hard to imagine we've come this far since the formation of the “Dream Tour†in 1995. In these early days, ASP pioneered sports webcasting and while our online audiences were small to start, years of hard work and innovation (especially this season's convergence of the sport onto a singular platform) is paying off. We're seeing steady improvement in audience engagement and growth across all sectors. Here are some of the highlights from Tahiti last week.*
Update 9/8: We've updated this post to include numbers from our dedicated Facebook fans.
Social:
- Facebook reach of 58 million people
Online:
- 2.2 million hours of live webcast watched
- Average watch time of 37 minutes
- 45-percent of the audience watched on a mobile device
- 1.9 million unique online visitors to ASPWorldTour.com during the 11-day Tahiti event, 6.1 million visits total
Television:
- More than 12 million household reach from our broadcast TV partners that include: FUEL TV (Australia), ESPN (Brazil), Time Warner Cable (Hawaii), MCS Extreme (France/Europe), Sport TV (Portugal) and more.
That's a sizable TV audience, one that we thought might lower the number of people watching from their computers and phones. But instead, we're seeing both numbers grow as we continue to enhance the quality of the content we produce while keeping the sport and its fans focused on one platform, www.aspworldtour.com.
And there's much more to come. Highlights from the Billabong Pro Tahiti will air on ABC Sports in America on Sunday, September 7, 2014 at 2:30pm ET / 11:30am PT. After that, we'll kick-off the next stop on the 2014 Samsung Galaxy ASP World Championship Tour with the Hurley Pro and Swatch Women's Pro at Lower Trestles, California from September 9 - 20, 2014.
We encourage you watch all our events live, see competition recaps and more at www.aspworldtour.com.
Graham Stapelberg Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer
Footnote: Online metrics from YouTube and ASP's analytics team. Television audience reach data from IMG, Aug. 19. Facebook fan number from Facebook Analytics.