2023-12-12 18:40:00
Ski broadcasts in Sweden are rapidly losing ratings. They are no longer able to compete with biathlon.
The biathlon and ski seasons start almost simultaneously, but how different are the fates of these traditionally popular sports in the north!
Sweden is one of the world leaders in television viewing of these competitions, so their ratings can safely be considered a reflection of what is happening in winter disciplines. And last weekend showed that biathlon is the number one winter sport for Scandinavians.
But ski racing is stagnant. Even the victories of their girls at the home stage are of no interest to anyone!
Bad trend
Biathlon broadcasts have been steadily gaining popularity both in Russia and abroad since the late 2000s. Among the leaders are Germany, Norway, Sweden. In Russia, the viewing of the World Cup is not very good right now, but this is understandable – without our athletes, these competitions are interesting to a very small audience.
Nevertheless, the Russian-speaking public is one of the main ones for biathlon leaders. It is no coincidence that even the official website of the International Biathlon Union has been translated into Russian.
In ski racing, our spectators have also formed one of the leading markets for FIS for a long time, including in the 2021/22 season, the completion of which took place without Bolshunov and company. According to the results of last winter, according to the analysis presented by the international federation, the leader in the TV audience of the Ski World Cup was Germany (224.57 million people), Sweden was in second place (149.63 million) and Finland was in third place (102.13 million). . Norwegians were in fourth position (89.74 million).
Maya Dahlquist and Moa Lundgren / Photo: © Federico Modica / NordicFocus / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
Interestingly, only Germany increased this indicator compared to the 2021/22 season, but Sweden and Finland showed a drop in the rating. And it seems that the trend of decreasing interest in cross-country skiing is only growing.
Not even in the top ten
In Sweden, after the stage in his native Östersund, the ski viewing figures resemble a disaster. Neither the Swedes’ triumph in the sprint, nor the failure in the time trial, where Frida Carlsson showed the worst result in the World Cup in her entire career, aroused enormous interest among the audience. These races are not even in the top 10 broadcasts of the weekend.
It can be assumed that the Swedes have generally cooled off in watching sporting events. But it’s enough to look at the biathlon ratings to dismiss this version as unreliable. Thus, the women’s pursuit and women’s relay in Hochfilzen led Swedish television viewers on Saturday and Sunday. Both races were watched by an average of 1 million people in the country, or 20% of the population aged 14 to 84 years. Similar men’s starts also made it into the top 5.
Elvira Oberg (center) Photo: © Christian Manzoni/NordicFocus / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
And this despite the fact that Sweden’s results in cross-country skiing are in no way inferior to biathlon, but rather the opposite. After three stages, the skiers have five victories in seven starts – against four first places for all biathletes (men and women). Probably, watching the almost guaranteed victories of the Swedes in the sprints and the total dominance of the Norwegian men is less interesting than watching the close struggle of a large number of biathletes from different countries in each race.
The domestic Swedish example cannot be blindly scaled to other countries, but the trend is obvious. In addition, Tre Kronor fans are one of the leaders in global television viewing of ski racing, if you do not take into account the Russians. At the same time, alarm bells came back in the summer, when local roller ski festivals showed ratings that exceeded some of last year’s World Cup broadcasts.
The current results after Östersund only confirm a simple fact – FIS is performing much worse than the IBU. And, judging by the inert behavior of Johan Elias’ team regarding the return of our athletes to the starts, interest in cross-country skiing will continue to decline.
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