Goalball World Championships prove a huge success

IBSA Goalball publishes post event results covering TV viewers, social media and online visitors. 25 Aug 2014
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Romario Diego MARQUES, Brazilian team blocks

The Brazilian goalball team has been crowned world champion in 2014.

ⒸIPC
By IBSA Goalball

In early July 2014, the 2014 IBSA Goalball World Championships in Espoo, Finland concluded and the number of spectators and followers of the Championships went far beyond any pre-tournament predictions.

The Championships were organised to an incredibly high standard and the level of play was to match.

Goalball continues to grow in popularity as well as in participation rates. The sport that was once unknown to many, despite its status as a Paralympic sport, is becoming more familiar.

This increase of knowledge around the sport can be attributed to a variety of things including the growth of the Paralympic Movement, the success of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, as well as increased media coverage and the rise of social media.

In Espoo, the event was streamed live online and, for the first time, organisers of the IBSA Goalball World Championships signed a television deal which included all the matches from the main sport arena being streamed live. The finals were also shown live on Finnish television, attracting an average audience of 35,000, and peaking at 38,000.

An average of 4,326 unique viewers also watched the live streaming throughout the first five days and the most popular day was the final day of round robin play which attracted a total of

4,695 unique viewers.

During six days of play, the official website also attracted an average of 3,953 visits, helped by 4,892 visitors during the finals day.

On social media, the number of Twitter followers and Facebook likes on the tournament’s official accounts each increased by approximately 200 per cent during the course of the Championships.

Finally, the IBSA Goalball Facebook page increased by approximately 8 per cent during the tournament.