The record numbers were backed by notable achievements such as 65 million people in China watching the national team play Greece in the preliminary round and three games topping the ratings for the year in Lithuania, beating the FIFA World Cup final.
“These ratings show that more fans are following the FIBA World Championship than ever before and international basketball is providing increasingly valuable programming for our broadcast partners,” said FIBA commercial director Matthew Osmon.
“In many countries, the FIBA World Championship programming has achieved as much as three times the ratings that FIBA’s broadcast partners normally achieve for other programming at the same time, showing that World Championship games can win audience share.”
For the first time FIBA was entirely responsible for the high definition broadcast production of all 80 games.
