The Betfred World Snooker Championship broke online TV records as Ronnie O’Sullivan made history in this year’s event at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
A record total of 22.5 million requests were made across BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website over the course of the Championship, including 2.8 million during the final alone as O’Sullivan beat Judd Trump 18-13 to equal Stephen Hendry’s seven World Championship victories.
There was also a peak audience of 4.5 million BBC Two viewers watching the final of the Betfred-supported event on Monday night, marking the highest figure the competition has seen in eight years and a 17% increase on the 2021 peak.
The average audience for the evening session was 3.1 million, with a 20% share of the overall viewing audience. Overall across the event, the share of audience was up 30% on last year.
Added to the strong figures on Eurosport, whose operators Warner Bros. Discovery Sports show the tournament in over 50 countries across Europe, it makes for excellent news for the World Snooker Tour.
WST Chairman Steve Dawson said: “We are delighted to see significant increases in viewing figures on both BBC and Eurosport. This underlines the enduring popularity of snooker for our core audience and the fact that we are also bringing in new fans.
“Snooker’s unique capacity to create drama and excitement was perfectly showcased by this year’s World Championship, with many enthralling matches and great moments. O’Sullivan’s victory over Trump in a superb final was a landmark moment in British sport which captured the attention of a huge audience.
“Our thanks go to our partners BBC, Eurosport and many other broadcasters worldwide for their outstanding coverage and we look forward to many more great moments for the global television viewers next season.”
The World Championship was Eurosport’s best tournament on record in the UK in terms of average audience and market share, with the final seeing a 29% increase against 2021. Other countries including Italy, Poland, Spain, Germany and France also hit record numbers on Eurosport, while the event was the most streamed sport on discovery+ UK during the event period, with the highest viewing time per unique video viewer across the duration of the tournament.
The 2022 World Championship was the eighth under Betfred sponsorship, during which time 726 century breaks have been made in the finals stages alone, with a record 109 being tallied this year including Neil Robertson’s maximum 147 during his epic second-round defeat to Jack Lisowski.
