Question: If someone (anyone) wins the Copa America, does anyone in North America even realize?
Answer: If US and Canadian online news coverage is any indication, then probably not.
A MediaMiser online news analysis of mentions of the Copa America–the South American tournament involving some of the the best players and teams in the world, including Argentina’s Lionel Messi– from June 1-29 shows that especially when compared to the UEFA Euro 2016 tournament, it’s simply not registering with North American viewers.
That’s despite the fact that the Copa America was held in the US for the first time ever this year, with the US national team even playing in the tournament.
You can see from the charts above that while mentions in the US media is already low, at a 75-25 Euro-Copa split, it’s even lower in Canada at 82-18. These numbers make it painfully clear that in North America, the Copa has been drowned out by the insane amount of buzz surrounding Euro 2016.
So much so, in fact, that arguably each tournament’s most popular players have suffered a notable difference in mentions depending on the tournament in which they appeared:
While the splits are somewhat less dramatic when it comes to Lionel Messi (Copa America) vs. Cristiano Ronaldo (Euro 2016) mentions, there’s still a noticeable trend toward mentions of the Euro player–especially when compared to MediaMiser’s previous analysis of the two players during 2014’s World Cup.
