FIFA World Cup by the numbers
Croatia and France will battle for the title of best soccer team in the world on Sunday at 11 a.m. EST in the FIFA World Cup final. You can watch the game on Fox or Telemundo (if you’re jonesing for those awesomely-elongated goal calls). Many fans were hoping for an England vs. France final, but in an upset, Croatia beat England 2-1 in Wednesday’s semifinal. And if you’re an executive for one of the World Cup broadcasters, you were probably hoping for that final as well, because Croatia’s not really a club that’s a household name. But it’s going to be a great game, and even if there’s not a lot of scoring, there are plenty of numbers to throw around when discussing the World Cup.
2014 Men’s World Cup Viewers: 3.2 billion. Brazil hosted the tournament for the second time and Germany took home the cup.
2015 Women’s World Cup Viewers: 764 million. Canada hosted and the United States won the tournament with a 5-2 victory over Japan.
Money athletic apparel-maker Nike spent on marketing the year of the Men’s 2014 FIFA World Cup: $876 million.
Number of years on the Adidas official sponsor contract: 12.
Read more about the quadrennial branding battle, here.
France FIFA World Rank: 7. The French are a young squad with a ton of speed and lots of flash. It’s the country’s first World Cup final since 2006.
Population of France: 67.19 million.
Croatia FIFA World Rank: 20. The Croatians have a dominant mid-field, spearheaded by a pair of players who play their club ball in Spain, Luka Modrić and Ivan Rakitić.
Luka Modrić (Croatia captain) estimated net worth: $7.5 million. Modrić usually plays for the Spanish soccer club, Real Madrid.
Population of Croatia: 4.29 million. The former Yugoslavian state sits on the Adriatic Sea. The country declared independence in 1991.
Nation with the most Men’s World Cup titles: Brazil with 5.
Nation with the most Women’s World Cup titles: U.S. with 3.
FIFA revenue in 2014: $5.7 billion. FIFA has been awash in scandal for years, after an investigation by an American lawyer, Michael J. Garcia, looked into corruption allegations surrounding FIFA’s executive committee’s process in how it chooses the tournaments’ host countries.
Amount of money Argentinian player Lionel Messi, one of the best known soccer players in the world, made last year: $111 million.
U.S. National Women’s Soccer League minimum salary in 2017: $15,000. The minimum salary was doubled in 2017.
Annual amount of money Nike pays to be the official sponsor of France: Around $63.21 million. Nike will pay $474.1 million over the seven-and-a-half-year contract and supply kit and equipment worth an extra $2.5 million euros a year. Nike also sponsors Croatia, so the Oregon-based company will be able to boast about having the World Cup champion wearing its jerseys no matter which country prevails.
Number of years left on Nike’s contract to sponsor Croatia’s soccer team: 8 years.
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