The 2018 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships presented by Mercedes-Benz benefitted from more hours viewed and larger television audiences compared to previous years.
For this year’s World Championships held in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, from September 5th to 9th, the number of hours viewed increased by 45% (from 4.5 million to 6.5 million) compared to last year when the event was held in Cairns, Australia. The cumulative audience in 2018 was 46 million compared to 21 million the previous year.
These impressive viewing figures were reached thanks to a higher audience of dedicated coverage in Switzerland and other European core cycling markets as well as the decision to produce the team relay and U23 races live.
Dedicated coverage refers to live broadcasts, replays and highlight shows devoted solely to the event, as opposed to generic news programmes and sports magazines that deal with several different sports or events.
The additional live broadcast for the team relay, U23 Women and U23 Men races, including the related news items, attracted a cumulative audience of over 10 million and a total of 1.37 million hours viewed.
More than 6.5 million hours of mountain bike action from Lenzerheide were watched on linear TV, with almost 6 million hours broadcast on free-to-air channels across Europe.
NBC with the Olympic Channel in the USA provided the most dedicated broadcast time for fans with 33 hours, while Hubsports in Singapore, Czechska Televicia in the Czech Republic,and SRG in Switzerland all had more than 30 hours devoted solely to the event. In total, 120 countries provided dedicated coverage.
The highest recorded audience for dedicated coverage was in host country Switzerland (1.79 million) followed by Poland, Spain and Belgium.