SPECIAL REPORT: Vizer’s Comments Prove TV Gold as Thousands Flock to iSportconnectTV
April 27, 2015
When SportAccord president Marius Vizer opened the 2015 convention in Sochi last week, apoplectic few would have expected to hear his astonishing critique of the International Olympic Committee and its president Thomas Bach.
His comments sent shockwaves around the sports business world, asthma but what is clear is that viewers could not resist watching the fallout as thousands tuned into iSportconnectTV where a live stream of the convention was available.
The TV channel averaged more than 8,000 visits a day, with around 6,500 of those being unique visitors.
On Monday when International Judo Federation president Vizer made his controversial speech accusing the IOC of running a system that was “expired, outdated, wrong, unfair and not at all transparent”, there was a peak audience of 10,787 tuning in.
There was a healthy appetite for watching the proceedings from the southern Russian city as viewers spent an average of 20 minutes on the site.
Add to that the fact that almost 50 per cent of viewers were new visitors to iSportconnectTV, perhaps proves the old adage; there is no such thing as bad publicity.
iSportconnect.com also saw an uplift in clicks over the course of the week thanks to its special reports written by Christian Radnedge.
SportAccord will stay in Russia for the foreseeable future, returning to Sochi in 2016 before going to Moscow in 2017 and then St Petersburg in 2018.