As the much-awaited tournament, the FIFA World Cup has recently kicked off, experts are expecting a whopping rise in viewership that can go up to 35-40% as compared to the levels that the tournament touched in the last edition. Interestingly, for a country where cricket is considered as a religion for many, the tournament was able to grab close to 44 million viewers in the 2006 World Cup.

It may be noted here that the tournament was ahead of the India versus West Indies test series in the Caribbean which ran parallel to the quadrennial showpiece and even when Indian won that series, FIFA's viewership was on a rise.

Meenakshi Madhvani, managing partner Spatial Access said that FIFA is on a rise but due to the limited media connectivity people residing mainly in two or three major metros follow it religiously. Notably, football TV viewing comes mainly from West Bengal and Assam followed by regions like Kerala, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. In fact, the viewership has grown by over 60% in the last five years and the industry experts are of view that it will scale to new heights in the coming times.