Was Eurocup A Success?

Before it started, the success of Euro 2012 Tournament was anything but a sure thing. Soccer aficionados worried about everything from whether the Ukraine was up to the challenge of hosting and whether racial taunts would be an issue.
Fortunately, none of these problems really became an issue and fans were treated to 25 days of amazing soccer. Of course Spain came out of Euro 2012 with the Cup, but they weren’t the only winners in the competition. Sports books and television networks also saw some pretty sweet benefits from the tournament.
Sports Books
Of course there’s no exact figures available on how much money was wagered, but a few bits of anecdotal information tell us that it was probably pretty huge.
In Malaysia and Vietnam busted several large, illegal, betting rings that were taking some pretty serious action. The Malaysian ring is believed to have to taken in around $93 million HKD ($11 millon USD) in bets over the past few weeks.
Of course just about every Euro facing sports betting site was offering a Euro 2012 bonus or free bet of some kind. This type of offer is exactly the kind of thing that helps sports book affiliates draw in new players.
In lovely Las Vegas, sports book operators were very happy with the business they saw from the Tournament, especially because it woke up the books during a normally slow time.  “It’s a good time of year for it because there’s not much going on during the day,” said LVH assistant race and sports director told the Las Vegas Sun recently.
Sports books that took action on futures bets were also very happy with the results. In Vegas, a steady stream of British tourists plunked down plenty of cash in hopes that the three lions could run the table.
More worrisome to the casinos was the potential of a Greek Cinderella-story. “We had Greece as high as 100-to-1 at one point. Their improbable run to get through Group A created some liability,” said Caesars sports betting guru Todd Fuhrman. Fortunately for Vegas, Greece flamed out before bettors could cash in on those long odds.
Television & the Internet

From a television perspective, the big news out of the Euro 2012 was the increase in American viewership. According to a New York Times report, American viewers turned out in record numbers to watch Euro 2012. Rating for the games were up as much as 60% over similar games in previous tournaments.
Online, worldwide audiences came in droves to watch and talk about the Euro 2012. A recent article on Forbes.com reported that Twitter saw that Tweets were coming in at as fast as 15,000 a second when Spain scored their fourth goal in the final game.
Suffice to say, sports book affiliates will want to keep these big international soccer tournaments on their editorial calendars.