From day 1 UEFA EURO 2024 is living up to expectations as an arena of emotions — from shouts of joy to cries of sadness as fans of football/soccer gather for 30 days of pure magic. So, how did fans engage with the UEFA Euro 2024 opening match? There’s no doubt audiences were captivated and delighted… but once again, the underdog effect left some emotional marks 😉
UEFA Euro 2024 opening match – Germany vs. Scotland
We closely followed the showdown between Germany and Scotland in three key markets – the UK, Portugal, and the USA, and proved once again the power of football/soccer to generate deep emotional reactions – surpassing typical emotional impact levels for TV content by 10% or more.
We measured the Emotional Impact of the match – the emotional engagement it generated with the audiences watching – and evaluated the broadcast’s performance against Mediaprobe norms (the biggest database of monitored biometric reactions to media content ever tracked – just saying):
- In the UK, the emotional impact surpassed the UK TV benchmark by +10%.
- In Portugal, the broadcast highly resonated with audiences, outperforming our Portugal TV benchmark by +11% in emotional impact.
- Meanwhile, in the USA, the broadcast exceeded the US TV benchmark with a remarkable +17% impact, affirming soccer’s surging popularity in the States.
The highest impact moment
But can you guess the moment with the highest impact? That’s right – Scotland’s goal was the top Emotional Impact Score (EIS) moment in the game for UK and PT broadcasts, and second in the USA, a good example of the good ol’ underdog effect:
- Scoring 1085, a remarkable +174% EIS above the session average, the goal significantly exceeded Mediaprobe’s benchmarks for both live events and TV among ITV viewers.
- For RTP audiences in Portugal, it achieved a score of 960, +79% EIS above the average session impact.
- In the USA and for fans watching on Fox Corporation, the moment when Scotland scored got an 814 EIS, marking a +52% emotional impact above the session average.
Advertisers score
Without surprise, this offers a terrific chance for advertisers and brands: while watching the Germany—Scotland game, viewers’ emotional engagement with ads was 13% higher on average than with the actual content. Additionally, an impressive 87% of viewers could recall at least one brand unaided – A testament to the power and importance of media quality in driving engagement.
So, do you know how viewers reacted to every second of your broadcast?
Stay tuned for more as we keep tracking the highlights of the tournament.