Page 46 - The Channel Issue 2 2010

urosport erected a purpose-built studio in Soccer City at the heart of the World Cup action in Johannesburg. Each night following the end of the last live match, Eurosport broadcast Soccer City Live across all Europe in HD, a not-to-be missed rendezvous for the day, and Soccer City Flash, a daily news programme.

In order to bring excellent post-match analysis Eurosport recruited some of football's top names to provide colourful expert views on the day's events, including the matches and other top stories. The all-star line-up included Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger, African legend Roger Milla, the Netherlands record national goalscorer, Patrick Kluivert, French 1998 World Cup winner Franck Leboeuf and Brazil's Bundesliga star, Giovane Elber.

Up to 42.3m different European viewers were in contact with the 78 hours of Eurosport content (daily talk shows and news flashes) dedicated to the World Cup.

many footballing nations together under one roof. In order to reach out to as many territories as possible with its products, Eurosport decided on a big push to leverage a comprehensive online offer. Eurosport's award-winning online network is multi-market and multi-language and with 10 million unique users per month, it is Europe's No.1 online destination, according to ComScore figures. Worldwide, especially in Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, it is rated the 6th biggest global sports website.

The websites provided fans with everything they needed to know – in real time – including live matchcasts (live, minute-by-minute text commentaries from each and every one of the 64 matches), expert blogs on all 10 local language versions (past players, journalists and coaches), breaking news, fans' forums (with guest stars) and player barometers and ratings.The sites also put a big stress on "interactivity" with social media tie-ins and initiatives (especially on Facebook and Twitter), photo galleries and team profiles. The online network recorded 3,356k daily visitors throughout the period with an all time daily record at 4,680k daily visitors (on

Putting on a show at world football's premier event in today's crowded European media broadcaster environment is very challenging, especially when it is as far away as South Africa. In the face of expensive live worldwide match rights, heavy production costs and the difficulty of achieving a share of voice on-air, the challenge for pan-European sports

broadcaster Eurosport was to stand out from its competitors. Eurosport's Joe McAvoy explains how they did it with one of their most successful and rewarding campaigns ever E