Super Bowl vs World Cup, Viewership & Value

I don't enjoy American style football. If there was a live soccer game on instead, I would watch it. If there was a live hockey game on, I would watch it.

The problem is my dad likes it, thus our sunday night dinner revolves around it.

 

I like what humorist (and former Miami Fusion fan) Dave Barry says something like: "The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event in the world. Unless you take into account the existence of the rest of the world."

The last one I watched all the way through was the one with Jim McMahon. The last one I watched a little bit of involved the Giants and the Bills. I know dozens of Americans who aren't going to watch a single down of tonight's game. So, sorry, Globulization, but there are lots of people who aren't going to watch the game. And there are millions who will be in the vicinity of a TV set tuned to the Super Bowl who won't be able to tell you the score tomorrow.

 

Myself (unless my local team is involved), most single females I know, even some males I know. Of course I've never been one to eat the shit people try to feed me.

The parties thing skewes the soccer numbers aswell, ever seen Korea's viewing parties? That's not you and your buddies kicking back with a Milwaukee's Best (or insert your brand of weak beer here, maybe Miller), those are thousands of people joined together. Many cities and countries had these on top of people at house parties, in pubs, and at home.

 

I dont watch it and neither do a lot of my "American" Friends. I would watch a good friendly over it . Ill probaly Watch The Manchester United game replay again........

 

If River and Boca were playing again during the Superbowl, I'd definitely watch that. That's coming from an American.

 

almost nothing better than River - Boca.....

 

Except the Super Bowl

 

Dude, why do you find it so hard to believe?

For my example: we have a small private club(Greek) with 3 TVs spread out at opposite corners.
From the approx forty members that were there at kick-off time, about 25 of us were watching the Greek sports & news highlights(for the next hour) on one TV, about 4-5 people were watching the Super Bowl on another TV, and the rest were viewing some other program on the 3rd TV.

When I got home(about half-time), my two teenage boys and two of their friends were watching the Super Bowl, and about 8 of us were in another room(no TV) just drinking and conversating for the night.

And just in case; we are all American citizens living here for over 35 years.




And yes, 85-95 million viewers seems about right for a country of 300mil. Almost all publications agree and usually go with that approximation.

 

Here's a much better and more recent site specializing into viewership ratings across the world. It compares a wide variety of sports and features graphs for each event and country.

http://www.exchange4media.com/e4m/media_matter/matter_010406.asp

Superbowl

American Football: Super Bowl
Date: Sunday, 6th February 2005
Event: New England Patriots vs Philadelphia Eagles

The Super Bowl is the climax to the American Football season, and is the biggest event in the US sporting calendar. As a result, the match draws its highest audiences, both in absolute terms and in ratings, in the US. There, it attracted an average audience of 86 million individuals (31.0 GRPs).




The second biggest market was Canada (12.8 GRPs). Although the Super Bowl was broadcast in a number of markets, as shown on the chart, viewing was very low outside North America, since the sport is hardly played anywhere else in the world. This, combined with the unfavourable live broadcast time (late Sunday night / early Monday morning) in the key European TV markets, means that the Super Bowl does not enjoy widespread global appeal.

It seems every sport is guilty of vastly overinflating their viewership ratings ... the NFL is arguably a little more guilty... than the Champions League final that is hehe.



Which sports are truly global?

For an event to attract a big worldwide audience, it helps to have global appeal. For example, the mass appeal of soccer in most markets helps to propel it towards the top of any table of the most popular events in sport.

However, not all of the most watched TV sporting events in the world have global reach. For example, the US alone accounted for over 90 per cent of this year’s live global audience for the Super Bowl, and also for the deciding games in the World Series and NBA Finals.

To assess which sports are truly global, we have calculated the percentage of the worldwide audience accounted for by the top three rating markets for each of our surveyed events. This figure is lowest for the European Champions League Final, at 40 per cent. On this measure, this is a sign of the long-term health of the event since it is the least dependent of any of those surveyed on achieving high ratings in any single market. By contrast, if UK audiences for the Ashes, or US viewing figures for the Super Bowl or the World Series, were to fall, then that could have a sizeable effect on their global popularity.



Defined in this way, the most ‘global’ of our fourteen surveyed events of 2005 included the European Champions League Final and the Canadian Grand Prix. Their multinational appeal helps to explain why they appear near the top of the league table of the most watched TV sporting events of the year.

At the other extreme, events such as the Ashes, the World Series and the Super Bowl cannot be considered as global affairs, on this definition.

 

much better.

 

I can. Me, my wife, my kids, my family, my wife's family, my friends' family, some single women I know, the 12 or so guys I was playing soccer with late Sunday afternoon. And yes, I'd watch a friendly over the superbowl.

 

Vulkan, excellent post!

The issue of time zones really puts all this into perspective. Never mind the fact that the Superbowl kicks off at 11:25 pm in the UK; 12:25 am (Monday Morning!) in Italy; 8:25 (Monday Morning - during a workday!) in Tokyo; etc.

The NFL is delusional. The superbowl is of no great significance outside of North America and using potential audience sizes to mask minute real viewership numbers is easy to see through.

If people want to get a picture of how relatively irrelevant the Superbowl is in much of the world, take a look at the Newseum:
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/?tfp_show_sort=yes

The site displays the front pages of numerous Newspapers throughout the world. Click the "Choose a Region" dropdown list to view papers from other continents. Most of these have no mention of last night's superbowl anywhere on their front pages. In fact, those that have sports related stories mentioned on their front pages more than likely have stories of other sports, usually soccer.

 

I should mention that many newspapers of the world would have gone to press for today's editions before the superbowl game ended. So tomorrow's newspapers throughout the world would give a fairer indication of interest in the event.

But it's still significant that there was scant mention of the event on front pages in editions published on -what was, in effect- the day the game was to take place.

 

I would rather watch a regular season EPL game and definitely a U.S. friendly.

I went to a super bowl party yesterday. You say "the whole nation watches".
One thing I noticed at this party of Football followers was that even these
Football fans hardly watched the game till maybe the last quarter. Most of the time they were playing pool and talking. I'm not even a football fan and I probably watched more of the game then these guys. The women could care less and every once in a while would ask what happened in a (I really dont care) voice. The kids under 16 watched maybe 2-3 minutes total. Overall more people cared about who won the betting pool.
To me, it all just seemed more like a social event with the TV on in the background.
To me, the game was pretty boring and I probably watched most of it.
Why is it so hard for you to believe some people may have different taste than you?
Just because it's now part of our culture to think this is such a great event doesn't mean everyone has to or will follow.

 

Yeah, I think you have to be delusional to say that the Super Bowl is the most watched event in the World (in the even-numbered years) or that American Football is even a known entity outside of the United States.

However, stating the Super Bowl is the most prized single-event commercial sports asset is a very defendable position (and probably a correct one).

 

this is the sports page of the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport

The superbowl isn't exactly centre stage.

in the papers...

The Telegraph has it as the lead story - but only for the "other sport" section
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/index.jhtml;jsessionid=TQTJEW4UMJJIHQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0


I'd be pretty amazed to see the superbowl make the back page of most newspapers around the world, let alone the front page.

I have to say I'm surprised that anyone would think it would even might make the front page of any paper outside the USA

 

I think you mean "outside of North America". There's significant interest in Canada and Mexico.

 

Americans tend to exagerate..well everyone does really. But Americans say that the NBA and MLB and NFL Champs are WORLD CHAMPS...which is beyond rediculous but they still say it.

 

MY estimates:

NFL Viewship:

In America lets say Roughly 50% of the population. So 150 Million.
Rest of World. I'll be genorous and say 50 Million (VERY GENOROUS)

Total Super Bowl Viewers: 200 Million.


World Cup:

Just in Brazil 100 Million (50% of population, probably more though)
Add another 75 Miilion or so in South America alone.
Add Mexico , US and Canada and Central America...another 75 Million.

So just in the Americas 250 Million.

And we havent even touched Europe Asia and Africa....

So you cant even compare....WC gets about 1 Billion real Viewers while the Super Bowl gets 1/5th of that AT BEST.

Source: Common sense

 

The exagerations work, plain and simple.
Ask most Americans and they will repeat the lies they hear. My kid comes home from school and says he had an argument with another kid because that kid is saying that Football is the most popular sport in the world blah blah blah. These lies will breed more fans because these people truly believe that this is the biggest thing in the world. It's all about sensationalism.
Thats why they lie, exagerate or steer some stories in the news, to draw more interest. Real truth is hard to find.

 

Thanks it was my first one!

Hmm looking at the newspapers link I only saw the Superbowl make the front page in Canadian and some Mexican papers. This confirms the graphs of the research group predicting viewship in the 2nd and 3rd country where the Superbowl is most watched behind US of course. But even in Mexico the viewership is less than 5% which would mean that even an average Mexican league game easily beats it. The Mexican papers are probably showing it because they are close neighbors to US hence get the Mexican audience more interested, if this wasn't the case then UK papers would have shown it as well.

I have the sneaking suspicion that there is still people in America who believe that its being "watched" by 1 billion people. Perhaps if they are talking about the ads then they might be right

 

well, as far as the NBA, it's true. Don't tell me that the team that wins the Italian League or the Spanish League (those leagues are the most important basketball leagues outside the U.S.) can even think to beat the NBA Champs. And the same goes with the team that wins the Euroleague. Just think that CSKA Moscow (this is the team who won the Euroleague last season) got killed by the Philadelphia 76ers during a pre-season game in October. Or just think that the Nuggets beat Istanbul (one of the top European basketball teams) by about 50 points in October. I am sure the NBA champs would have won by at least 100 points. I don't have a problem with people saying that the NBA Champs are the world champs. That's true. They are right.

International competitions (such as the World Championship) is another thing, that doesnt have anything to do with the NBA.

 

I checked the morning paper today (Daily Mirror - 2nd best selling paper in the UK I believe) to make sure the superbowl really didn't make the front page here. It didn't. Nor the back. In fact it was several pages in, in the sports round-up. I did a count up and the entire Superbowl report came to......67 words. Sixty seven. That in a sport section about 10 pages long.

To be fair I saw another paper and it got a 1/4 page there, about the same as "sensational" story that Mark Viduka might quite Middlesbrough in the summer.

I know that's a joke, but I have heard that given as a reason why viewing figures could be high around the world. Ignoring the fact that nobody else seems to understand the possible excitement of these adverts, there's the little detail that the rest of the world doesn't see the adverts you see.