Wimbledon’s wealthy and well-known will probably be referred to as out for watching the World Cup in Royal Box
The grass court grand slam will not show any football action on its screens or even in the players’ dressing rooms, championship boss Sally Bolton said
Wimbledon’s rich and famous will be called out for watching the World Cup in Royal Box(Image: Matthew Stockman, Getty Images)
Elite patrons in Wimbledon’s Royal Box have been warned against sneaking a peek at the World Cup or face being given a ticking off.
The snooty grass court grand slam will not show any football action on its screens or even in the players’ dressing rooms, championship boss Sally Bolton said.
While officials can’t stop punters watching on their phones, those lucky enough to find themselves in the Royal Box face a telling-off for doing so.
Sally Bolton said: “We are not going to be showing the football on any of the big screens around the grounds but clearly if people have got their phones then we are not going to prevent people from watching the football.”
However, there are different rules for those in the Royal Box.
“We do discourage people from using their phones in the Royal Box,” Ms Bolton added.
It comes as we revealed American has finally fallen in love with ‘soccer’, with World Cup viewing figures Stateside going through the roof.
Both Fox Sports – the tournament’s English-language broadcaster in the US – and its Spanish equivalent Telemundo broke viewership records during group stage and expect even higher ratings for the knockout games.
Telemundo reported its World Cup viewership is ‘pacing at more than double’ the 2022 tournament in Qatar with audience engagement ‘at historic highs’.
Fox Sports said 84 million Americans have watched at least some of its coverage up to June 25.
That data hails from Nielsen’s TV and streaming measurement system which calculates how many people have watched for at least one minute.
Fox’s president for insights and analytics Michael Mulvihill wrote on X, 9,722 mega-fans have watched at least a minute of ‘ALL 48 of the first 48 World Cup matches on FOX and FS1’.
NBC’s Mike Florio wrote: “For Fox the $485 million (£366m) paid for the English-language World Cup broadcast rights in America may be the best investment the network has ever made.”
