NIGERIA is the most Soccer Loving Nation in the World

“Nigeria is a football crazy nation,” says Mike Wragg, Repucom’s global head of research. Unlike most large countries, Wragg says, the sport has no real rival. “There isn’t a second sport, like baseball or basketball, that has any kind of tradition at all.”

During the national team’s first World Cup match against Iran on Monday, 17.5 million Nigerians over the age of 15 tuned in to watch, according to surveys by GeoPoll, a Denver company that offers overnight audience measurement in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria. Every four hours, GeoPoll asks a sample of Nigerians about their recent TV viewing via text message. The company polls from a panel of more than 2,000 regular media consumers.

Max Richman, GeoPoll’s chief data scientist, says roughly 73 percent of Nigeria’s over-15 population of 100 million watches TV at least once a month. That means nearly a quarter of all adult TV viewers in Nigeria tuned into the World Cup match on Monday at 8 p.m. local time.

In the U.S. the first national team match drew a combined audience of 15.9 million on ESPN and Univision. That number, which includes all viewers over the age of 2, was considered cause for celebration. And Nigeria has a total population (177 million) a little more than half as big as the U.S. (316 million).

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-20/the-worlds-most-crazed-soccer-nation-try-nigeria