Brazil 2014: "Audience will increase" compared to 2010 World Cup (Ericson, FIFA)

"We have some reasons to say the [television] audience will increase [for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, from 12/06 to 07/13/2014]. We worked very hard on the match schedule and the times. We think they will be very good for the football fan," said Niclas Ericson, television director for FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) on 03/06/2014.

According to FIFA, 3.2bn people watched at least one minute of a live broadcast of the matches of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. No numerical target for the 2014 edition was unveiled by Niclas Ericson, who said that FIFA still has difficulty accurately measuring ratings in some countries.

"We think we have very good kick off times for Africa, the Middle East and Europe and will continue to grow the audience there. And as the World Cup is in the Americas, we’ll have even better figures from there than ever before," said Ericson.

188.4m viewers per game during the 2010 World Cup

• 909.6m people watched at least one minute of the live broadcast of the final of the 2010 World Cup between Spain and the Netherlands (1-0 aet) on…