Half of All Respondents Say They Would Watch The Olympics In 3D If They Had The Right Equipment, According To TechBargains.com Survey

TechBargains.com, a deal aggregation website for electronic products, released its Olympics survey results revealing that social media is expected to play a major role during the Summer 2012 London Olympics with 87% of people saying they will partake in social media or text friends about the Olympic events. While only 9% of respondents plan to buy TVs for the Olympic Games, half say they would watch the Olympics in 3D if they had the right equipment. TV is still the dominant (94%) platform on which people will watch the games, while 46% will watch on laptops, 39% on desktops, 31% on tablets, and 27% on smartphones.

The survey also found that while the overwhelming majority (97%) of people will watch the Olympics at home, one in five will also sneak in viewing at work, 28% will watch it at a restaurant/bar and 4% will watch at school. Additionally, survey respondents said they would watch an average of 6.7 hours of Olympic events during the week and 5.6 hours during the weekend.

“The 2012 Summer London Olympics are introducing the 3D TV experience to sporting events, something that has yet to be done on such a large scale,” said Yung Trang, President and Editor in Chief of TechBargains.com. “While the results indicate that not many people will actually be watching the events via a 3D TV, it’s simply because they don’t have access to the proper entertainment system and not because of a lack of interest. This is also the first Olympic games since social media use has become widespread. Both factors have serious implications for all national and international sports organizations and will dramatically affect the viewer experience.”

Devices, Devices

The survey found that more people (16%) plan to buy devices to watch the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, compared with 13% for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Respondents under 30 years old were most likely to purchase a new TV and those that were 60 years old were least likely to purchase a new TV for the Olympics this year. Additionally, over half of respondents will re-watch events by catching highlights on television and 38% will use a DVR.

Social Media Savvy

The survey found that social media activity will not be used more for the Olympics than normal. However, 87% of people said they will partake in some social media or will text friends about Olympic events. Over half of those surveyed (53%) said they would be cheering for a team or athlete via social media and/or texting. The majority of respondents (77%) said they will interact with Facebook the most while watching the Olympics, followed by Twitter (31%), texting friends (29%), YouTube (28%), Google+ (20%), and Pinterest (6%). Additionally, because of ease of use, 57% of people said they would be using their laptop to interact with social media while watching the Olympics games.

The survey was conducted on TechBargains.com and had 1,330 respondents.

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