Zeta Predicts Tokyo Will Be One of the Lowest-Watched Summer Olympics of the 21st Century

ZetaPulse, a proprietary consumer sentiment survey with 2000+ respondents, highlights consumer trends for 2021 Summer Olympics, including media consumption, event interest and athlete fandom

Zeta, a cloud-based marketing technology company that empowers enterprises to acquire, grow, and retain customers, today released insights from its latest ZetaPulse survey regarding consumer sentiment toward the upcoming 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Based on responses from over 2000 respondents across the United States, the survey sought to discover consumer interest in the 2021 Olympic Games considering the various non-traditional arrangements due to COVID-19, such as live spectators not being allowed in stadium, the 1-year event postponement, and the 2020-2021 precedent of lower ratings and viewership among other live nationally broadcast events (such as the Super Bowl, Grammys, Stanley Cup Finals).

Top insights include:

Enthusiasm for the Tokyo Olympics is Low

• The majority of U.S. consumers are not looking forward to the Olympics this year: 45.2% of U.S. consumers surveyed are not looking forward to the Olympics, while 17.5% are undecided.
  • Zeta predicts that the Tokyo Olympics will be one of the lowest-watched Summer Olympic Games in the 21^st century, to date.
• As the U.S. economy re-opens, people are not prioritizing the Olympics: As the U.S. re-opens following the pandemic and travel re-emerges this summer, 52.7% of people surveyed said they would not watch the Olympics with people they don’t live with, and only 19.4% will watch the Olympic Games in a location outside of their home.
• Women and Generation Z are more interested in watching the Olympics than other demographics.
  • Generation Z and younger Millennials (adults 18-34) had the highest proportion of interest watching the Olympics. The interest level dropped with each increasing age group.
  • 48% of surveyed women were interested in watching the Olympics, whereas only 41% men were interested.

Female Olympians are Heavy Fan Favorites

• Female Olympians are getting the highest amount of buzz this year: Only three male athletes made the survey’s top 10 Olympian athletes list.
  
  1. Simone Biles, 2. Katie Ledecky, 3. Naomi Osaka, 4. Kevin Durant, 5. Allyson Felix, 6. Megan Rapinoe, 7. Alex Morgan, 8. Julie Ertz, 9. Devin Booker, 10. Caeleb Dressel.

• Women’s gymnastics is the #1 favorited Olympic sport, according to survey respondents: Nearly one third (32.7%) of surveyed consumers reported women’s gymnastics as their favorite sport. Others include volleyball, swimming, track and basketball.
  • 28% of young viewers (Adults 18-34) are most interested in basketball.
  • Among political interest groups, Republicans are much more interested in women’s gymnastics, while Democrats favor swimming and men’s basketball as a favorite event.

Streaming Will Soon Outpace Cable TV Olympic Viewership

• While Cable TV (NBC) is still the preference for those watching live Olympic events, mobile and connected TV viewership is rising. The gap between watching the Olympics on traditional Cable TV (33.2%) versus Mobile (28%) is closing; while Tablet/Laptop (19.5%) and Connected TV viewers (19.3%) are similar, signifying the rise in CTV over the past year.
  • Zeta predicts that Mobile and Connected TV will continue to rise in usage, surpassing Cable TV and Tablet usage by the next Summer Olympics in 2024.

To view more data-driven consumer insights across financial services, insurance, retail, travel, automotive, entertainment and other industries, sign-up for The Pulse – Zeta’s bi-weekly insights newsletter, or request a custom report from Zeta's Opportunity Explorer, a top-rated real-time analytics and insights solution derived from information provided by over 220 million opted-in individuals in the United States.

About Zeta

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (NYSE: ZETA) is a leading data-driven, cloud-based marketing technology company that empowers enterprises to acquire, grow and retain customers. The Company’s Zeta Marketing Platform (the “ZMP”) is the largest omnichannel marketing platform with identity data at its core. The ZMP analyzes billions of structured and unstructured data points to predict consumer intent by leveraging sophisticated artificial intelligence to personalize experiences at scale. Founded in 2007 by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley, the Company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, please go to www.zetaglobal.com.

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