Around 1.46 million Norwegians watched Sunday night’s FIFA World Cup final between Germany and Argentina, making it the most-watched football final since 1.5 million Norwegians saw Italy take on France in the 2000 European Championship final. While Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) and TV2 were thrilled with the audience numbers, legendary Norwegian coach Nils Arne Eggen said a boring final left viewers the ultimate losers.
While the final screened on NRK was the most-watched match, TV2 also recorded 1.28 million viewers for the Brazil-Germany semi and 1.17 for the Argentina-Netherlands semi. NRK’s said the great viewing figures were a fantastic end to the World Cup.
“To be allowed to convey what is described as the all-time World Cup has been a crazy privilege,” said TV2 sports director Vegard Jansen Hagen. “TV2 has had the rights to all European Championships and World Cups since 2000, but none of us have experienced anything close to something so intense, spectacular and intoxicating. We have been in constant bliss since the opening match on June 12.”
Both TV2 and NRK were happy with the way the broadcasters had collaborated in Brazil and Oslo on the cup coverage. They said they’ll collaborate on more championships where broadcast rights are expensive, including the 2016 European Football Championship and the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Meanwhile, respected Norwegian coach Eggen said he disagreed the Brazil event was the “all-time” World Cup. “The introduction was alright, with some surprises which were a bit of fun,” he told NRK. “What happened in the quarter finals and semi finals was a long yawn. They had no people on attack the whole time. Take for example the Netherlands against Argentina. There was hardly a scoring chance in two hours.”
“The exception was Germany which has an attack pattern I like to watch,” Eggen added. Germany crushed Brazil with a relentless 7-1 victory in the first semi final. “All the other semi final teams have had far better years earlier.”
newsinenglish.no staff
