More than 140m fans flock to Footballco publications during an historic 2022 FIFA World Cup

Footballco, recorded its highest-ever traffic numbers during the 2022 FIFA World Cup as more than 140m fans came to its websites and mobile apps during the tournament generating 1.58bn page views. Footballco is home to the global football media brand GOAL, as well as leading local marketing titles including Kooora in the Middle East, SPOX in Germany and Voetbalzone in the Netherlands.

Footballco’s social channels also saw a huge surge in engagements and video views during the tournament, with 323m engagements registered and more than 1.5 billion video views.

Across both GOAL and Kooora, including GOAL’s recently overhauled mobile apps, a combined 124m unique users came to both platforms during the tournament. With both brands contributing a combined 1.35bn page views.

Footballco acquired Kooora in April this year and partly due to the 2022 FIFA World Cup being the first held in the Middle East, Footballco benefited from the brand’s already dominant position in the region, as well as GOAL’s established Middle East audiences.

The World Cup also helped to increase Footballco’s social audience, with the publisher passing the 100m follower mark across all of its social media accounts during the final week of the tournament.

Across social media, Footballco saw huge levels of growth and consumption. This included 272m video views and 21m engagements across Footballco’s TikTok channels and 277m views and 105m engagements across Instagram Reels.

The 2022 World Cup was very much the vertical video World Cup, with Shorts shared across Footballco’s YouTube channels being viewed more than 18m times.

James Lamon, Footballco’s SVP of content and creative said, “The World Cup is a period where our football media brands come into their own, serving fans around the world with content generated by our talented journalists and content creators from both within their home country and working on the ground in Qatar.

“It could be argued that this year’s World Cup was the most exciting we’ve seen in the tournament’s 92 year history, with many groups going down to the wire, more goals scored in knockouts, and some of the world’s biggest teams eliminated earlier than expected. The final raised the bar even further, with a back-and-forth drama that left fans and pundits guessing. 

“While that played a part in our numbers, we also benefited from some teams performing above expectations, including Japan and the USA, where we have established and strong fanbases.

“Of course, our acquisition of Kooora, the most popular sports publisher in the Middle East, put us in a very strong position even before the first ball was kicked.

“Qatar also presented a unique opportunity in terms of content creation. Due to the proximity of all the venues, we were able to have all of our journalists and content creators in the same city, which has been impossible for previous World Cups such as Russia and Brazil.”

While much of GOAL’s best-performing video content was captured with fans in Qatar, the World Cup also provided a platform for GOAL’s player-led video content, including Box to Box and Kit Collector.

Lamon said: “Episodes of these series with England talent including Declan Rice, John Stones and Kieran Tripper  released during the tournament contributed significantly to metrics, both in terms of video views and fan engagement.

“2023 is going to be a very different year to 2022 but no less thrilling. We have a race for silverware among Europe’s top leagues followed by the Women’s World Cup, which if  the Euro is any indication, should be a huge event for both fans and brands.”