Kiwis tune in for record-breaking America’s Cup action

AUCKLAND, Today: Just a week into the 37th Louis Vuitton America’s Cup in Barcelona, record numbers of Kiwis are tuning in to watch the action on stuff.co.nz, Three, and ThreeNow.

Stuff Digital Managing Director Nadia Tolich says the first four days delivered over 200,000 video views, with an average viewing time of more than 12 minutes per race. “When you have people sitting on a fast-moving digital news site that publishes 150 stories a day watching a single video for 12 minutes, that is remarkable.”

“We are seeing excellent engagement even in the early hours of the morning when the races are live, and then an influx of unique audience views of our on-demand coverage, analysis, and interviews all throughout the day. And that was for the preliminary round – it is going to be even bigger and better as the competition ramps up!”

Stuff and Warner Bros. Discovery partnered with Emirates Team New Zealand for the first multichannel live and free coverage, brought to Kiwis by Toyota New Zealand, making this the most accessible America’s Cup coverage ever.

“We are seeing excellent engagement even in the early hours of the morning when the races are live, and then an influx of unique audience views of our on-demand coverage, analysis, and interviews all throughout the day.” – Nadia Tolich

“Being able to watch live race action on your mobile in bed or catch up across the day on laptops at work and home is creating an amazing buzz about the event, even as it is sailed half a world away,” says Tolich.

“The technology behind this year’s event is also remarkable with more cameras in more places and amazing racetrack and real-time wind visualisations delivered by Dunedin’s own incredible graphics company Animation Research Ltd.

“Our journalists are getting incredible behind the scenes access too, as seen in Lisette Reymer’s exclusive tour today of the Team New Zealand base.”

Stuff Brand Connections Managing Director Matt Headland says the commercial opportunities offered through international live sport on New Zealand’s largest digital news site are bringing incredible engagement for advertisers.

“When you’re talking about longer video viewing on a product that people are returning to several times across a week, it makes Stuff’s scale and engagement unbeatable,” he says. “It is partnerships, events and compelling content packages like this that make more people come to Stuff, more often, and stay for longer than on any other digital news site.”