Guest speedmonk42 Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 Anyway that is what this guy was trying to tell me the other day, that the super bowl was as big or bigger than the World Cup. So I said, and I am still kind of pleased with myself. "Yeah it is just like the superbowl, only there are 64 of them in one month" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massive Attack Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 In terms of audience, the Super Bowl is as big as the Champions League final. Both get about a 90 million TV audience. The World Cup final gets about 3 times that amount. Edit: Just wanted to add some actual facts. According to this article in the G&M : Debunking the billion-viewers myth http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070202.TRUTH02/TPStory/TPSports/?query= Last year's game (Pittsburgh Steelers-Seattle Seahawks) was watched by 98 million viewers, 90.7 million of whom were in the United States. (In Canada, Global Television drew 4.28 million.) The World Cup soccer final (Italy-France) led 2006 sports audiences with 260 million. The Turin Olympics' opening ceremony drew 87 million. Barcelona-Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League final had 86 million. Only 8 million people outside of the US actually watches the Super Bowl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amacpher Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 Too me the "8 million people outside the USA watch the Super Bowl" is the true measure of how big (well, small) the Super Bowl really is (and its probably less than 1 million outside USA + Canada). So its silly to even compare it to the World Cup final or even the CL final. In fact, the super bowl doesn't even stack up to, say, a Barcelona v Real Madrid league match (which is also watched by about 40% of people in the home country but obviously much more than 8 million abroad watch). The super bowl is more on par with an Al Ahly - Zamalek match (ie the Cairo derby). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jeffery S. Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Put the Champions on a weekend afternoon and not midweek, ensure it is on a cold winter day when noone is at the beach (and we are at the beach in May in Barcelona) make it last for four hours, add the attraction of a half-time show with shadows of thin curvy phallic symbols in the mix and hyped up ads so anyone, even those who hate the game, might tune in, and you can inflate your figures by at least 50%, just like with the Super Bowl. Because anytime an event lasts so long on a day when most people are home relaxing most of them including half the country who really do not care about it, end up watching for a while. And that is reflected in the typically bloated US tv numbers, which in the end really exist to drive up the cost of advertising rates for the event. A clever vicious circle. You can't compare the two. For Champions those watch who care about the game, it is not a social event, except for fans of the specific teams involved and perhaps their countries. The Super Bowl is watched by a huge number of people, partially and half heartedly, as a social occassion and something unavoidable on wintry Sunday afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jeffery S. Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Put the Champions on a weekend afternoon and not midweek, ensure it is on a cold winter day when noone is at the beach (and we are at the beach in May in Barcelona) make it last for four hours, add the attraction of a half-time show with shadows of thin curvy phallic symbols in the mix and hyped up ads so anyone, even those who hate the game, might tune in, and you can inflate your figures by at least 50%, just like with the Super Bowl. Because anytime an event lasts so long on a day when most people are home relaxing most of them including half the country who really do not care about it, end up watching for a while. And that is reflected in the typically bloated US tv numbers, which in the end really exist to drive up the cost of advertising rates for the event. A clever vicious circle. You can't compare the two. For Champions those watch who care about the game, it is not a social event, except for fans of the specific teams involved and perhaps their countries. The Super Bowl is watched by a huge number of people, partially and half heartedly, as a social occassion and something unavoidable on wintry Sunday afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massive Attack Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 quote:Originally posted by amacpher Too me the "8 million people outside the USA watch the Super Bowl" is the true measure of how big (well, small) the Super Bowl really is (and its probably less than 1 million outside USA + Canada). So its silly to even compare it to the World Cup final or even the CL final. In fact, the super bowl doesn't even stack up to, say, a Barcelona v Real Madrid league match (which is also watched by about 40% of people in the home country but obviously much more than 8 million abroad watch). The super bowl is more on par with an Al Ahly - Zamalek match (ie the Cairo derby). If you take out Canada the number is even smaller. 3.72 million people outside of Canada and the US watched the 2006 Super Bowl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massive Attack Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 quote:Originally posted by amacpher Too me the "8 million people outside the USA watch the Super Bowl" is the true measure of how big (well, small) the Super Bowl really is (and its probably less than 1 million outside USA + Canada). So its silly to even compare it to the World Cup final or even the CL final. In fact, the super bowl doesn't even stack up to, say, a Barcelona v Real Madrid league match (which is also watched by about 40% of people in the home country but obviously much more than 8 million abroad watch). The super bowl is more on par with an Al Ahly - Zamalek match (ie the Cairo derby). If you take out Canada the number is even smaller. 3.72 million people outside of Canada and the US watched the 2006 Super Bowl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 quote:Originally posted by Massive Attack If you take out Canada the number is even smaller. 3.72 million people outside of Canada and the US watched the 2006 Super Bowl. And half of the 3.72 million outside the US and Canada are probably Americans living abroad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desigol Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 It's more due to the fact that most Europeans are in Bed when the Superbowl's on. A lot of kids are into NFL, but it's only the older ones that are allowed to watch the Superbowl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amacpher Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 quote:Originally posted by Desigol It's more due to the fact that most Europeans are in Bed when the Superbowl's on. A lot of kids are into NFL, but it's only the older ones that are allowed to watch the Superbowl. Yet the numbers show that even the older non-Americans who are allowed to watch the SB, choose not to. [:I] The site http://www.aca.ch/amabroad.pdf (although its about 7 years old) shows that 2.5 million Americans live outside North America. We also know that only 2 million people outside North America watch the SB. And we know that about 42% of Americans watch the SB. Do the math and you'll see that only 1 in every 5000 non-Americans living outside N. America watch the Super Bowl. That's about twice as bad as Champions League ratings in the USA! I don't agree with the time-zone difference argument either. That's an excuse people use for the poor Champions League ratings in the USA too. But in reality, the *only* reason Champions League games are shown live here on mainstream channels is because of its bad time-slot (ie when the sports channels are so desperate to fill time that they'll show anything). Likewise if the Super bowl was on at a primetime in Europe, you wouldn't actually find it on TV. Instead the mainstream channels will be showing stuff that generates higher ratings than the SB ever could (like darts, reality shows, law&order reruns, 15 year-old movies etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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