Neuchâtel hosted the IFF Women’s World Floorball Championships 2019 on 7-15 December 2019. This was the third time that the event was hosted in Switzerland and the first time that the event was organised in the French-speaking part. A new total attendance record for Women’s World Floorball Championships was set during the WFC and the event generated record media interest in both German-speaking and French-speaking parts of Switzerland.
This and more WFC 2019 data is found in the event study produced by Sportcal. The complete study is available here.
The attendance totalled 44,513 over the nine-day tournament, beating the previous Women’s WFC attendance record of 43,806 set in Brno and Ostrava in 2013. Close to 12,000 tickets were sold, contributing to a substantial part of the event revenues. Overseas spectators and accredited participants generated an estimated 7,634 bed nights in Neuchâtel and the neighbouring cantons.
The tournament was broadcast in 19 nations on TV, with live and delayed coverage generating over 277 hours of coverage and attracting an audience of 7.5 million. The live streams from Neuchâtel 2019 on IFF’s YouTube channel had over 766,080 views, while 1,309 stories were published during the tournament. A total of 166 members of accredited media covered the event.
The decision to organise the event in Neuchâtel was made in order to spread the sport to the French-speaking regions of the country:
– In the long-term, a major goal was to increase interest in the game in the French-speaking regions of the country. While the fulfilment of this objective will be assessed in the long run, media interest in both the German-speaking and French-speaking parts has never been higher in floorball, and public interest soared due to the Swiss team’s performance, according to the Swiss Floorball Association.
Other key findings from the study include:
- The gold medal match was the best attended game of the competition, with 4,250 spectators. This was followed by the 3rd place decider between Finland and Czech Republic (3,734). The host nation’s matches attracted cumulative attendance of 16,260.
- A total of 11,753 tickets were sold for the WFC 2019.
- A total of 39 broadcasters across 19 nations in three continents provided broadcast coverage.
- Live or delayed coverage was shown in 15 nations by 20 out of 39 broadcast rights holders. The broadcast data received by IFF from 17 of those broadcasters indicates that the amount of broadcast hours totalled 322.
- The final match of the WFC 2019 drew the highest number of viewers, generating an audience of 1.81 million. Of that figure, 444,345 viewers watched the coverage of the match in Sweden and a further 272,179 viewers in Switzerland.
- Event website handled 822,614 page views from 131,365 users during the competition, averaging 91,402 views per day. Traffic peaked on the day of the final, with 15th December recording the most users (20,327) and page views (110,363).
- Over the nine days of competition, six social media accounts (WFC & IFF) recorded 2,488 posts, 220,556 likes and reactions and 2,781 new followers
- The WFC 2019 was supported by a total of 18 partners, representing 11 industry sectors.
- The WFC 2019 made an operating loss of CHF 61,188 (based on the accounts provided by Swiss Floorball Association, excludes income/expenditure of FSG Corcelles-Cormondrèche which made a profit of around CHF 80,000). The operating expenditure of the organising committee totalled CHF 1.08 million, while the revenue amounted to CHF 1.02 million.
- As a way of engaging children in floorball, the Swiss Floorball Association ran a schools programme, which brought thousands of school children from across the country to watch games for free throughout the tournament.
- The WFC 2019 helped Swiss Floorball to strengthen its relationships with high ranking ministers and politicians, garnering the federation more political sway. It is hoped that the event will help to build more political support for the construction of a new sports hall in Neuchâtel.
Comparative Event Analysis
The findings from this study were compared to data from world championships in other sports, across five key indicators. A total of 39 world championships in summer Olympic sports held in 2018 and 2019 (sports featured in the programme of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games; women’s or mixed gender events) were identified to conduct comparative analysis.
Sportcal
The study was conducted by a UK-based sports market intelligence firm, Sportcal, as part of Sportcal’s Global Sports Impact (GSI) Event Studies Programme that provides event owners and hosts with a holistic impact assessment by looking at economic, tourism, event experience, media, social media, sponsorship, sporting and social benefits of hosting events. Read the whole study here!
