The Qoros 2015 ITTF World Table Tennis Championships held in Suzhou, China on 26 April - 3 May 2015 has been officially announced as the most followed table tennis event in history.
The world-s biggest table tennis event was followed by an estimated 450 million people across the globe, which is a record for a table tennis event.
330 million unique people watched the event on their TV s in 170 countries across the world.
In China alone, 252 million tuned into the ITTF World Championships, which means that 1 in 5 people in China watched the event on TV during the 50 hours of live coverage on CCTV-5 and 150 hours of coverage on other Chinese networks.
Data provided by CSM Media research-KantarSport shows that the Men-s Singles Final averaged over 16 million viewers every minute, and 40 million in total for what is now the fourth most-watched sports event of the year in China.
Managing Director of Media & Sports Research at CSM Media research-KantarSport Pierre JUSTO stated: "Such TV audience numbers clearly show clearly that table tennis remains a very powerful sport on TV in China and is able to generate numbers as big as football or basketball."
"Throughout the rest of the world, the TV coverage of the World Championships was also on the rise. There was more TV news about the event in Germany than before, and the broadcast coverage was also larger in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and many other countries, ensuring more viewers than ever before" concluded Mr JUSTO.
In addition to record TV ratings, the event also surged on all of the ITTF's other platforms.
ITTF.com's servers were pushed to the limit, as 10 million unique people visited the official website of the ITTF. During the major matches, there were a staggering 20,000 people per second landing on the front page, eager to keep up with the live results.
ITTF's free online streaming platform ITTF.com/itTV, which for the first time streamed eight tables live, had 1 million unique viewers watching the world's best table tennis players live and on demand.
Nearly 3 million people saw content on ITTF's Facebook page (Facebook.com/ITTFWorld), which boosted the fan base to 200,000.
The views on ITTF YouTube channel nearly doubled from a year ago, with 7 million people from 231 countries tuning into YouTube.com/ITTFChannel to watch content from Suzhou.
The conversation about the World Championships went viral through twitter (@ITTFWorld) and instagram(@ITTFWorld), with 30,000 mentions of the official hashtag #ITTFWorlds2015.
The 1,000 accredited press in Suzhou spread the word about the event through the written press, as over 11,000 articles were written about the Championships, reaching hundreds of millions of people.
All these factors together brought the Qoros 2015 World Table Tennis Championships to more people than any table tennis event ever before.
These figures will be the target to be beaten at next year's ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships to be held in Kuala Lumpur on 28 February to 6 March 2016.
For more information on sponsorship packages available for the 2016 event, please contact Kimberly KOH at kk@tmsmail.com.
#ITTFWorlds2015 Media Stats:
Countries that broadcasted the event live on TV: 170
CCTV viewers: 252 million
World wide TV viewers: 330 million
ITTF.com unique visitors over 8 days: 10 million
itTV unique viewers over 8 days (live and on demand) :1 million
440 matches on itTV
Countries that watched itTV: 179
People who saw content on ITTF's Facebook:3,000,000
YouTube views: 7 million
Countries that watched content on YouTube: 231
Minutes watched on YouTube: 25 million
Accredited media: 1,000
Media articles: 11,000
For any other questions or queries, please contact ITTF's Promotion Manager Matt Pound at mpound@ittfmail.com.
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