I’m just scratching the surface of this subject but 5 minutes ago I heard, on CBC news (canadian public broadcaster), that the Super Bowl attracted 1 billion viewers… I haven’t found the answer yet but as I said in my previous post, wikipedia (whoever that is!) suggests that this is probalby an urban myth:
There is a popular urban myth regarding the Super Bowl — that the game is watched in 234 countries by 1 billion people, a fact unlikely to be true considering the time of the event, and the lack of popularity American Football has outside of the United States. In actual fact, Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005 was watched by 93 million viewers in total, of which 98 percent were in North America. Approximately half of the remaining 2 million worldwide viewers watched from the United Kingdom.
Just to have a better idea, I found the ratings of other big broadcast events:
- this week’s President Bush’s State of The Union address (Nielsen): 42 million
- FIFA World Cup 2002 (wikipedia) : cumulative audience 28.8 billion, final match 1.1 billion
My guts feelings tell me that soccer is the real global sport. How could american football be so popular all around the globe?
Anyone has the answer?
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Super bowl is huge in the US even people that are not that much into football actually watch the super bowl. But those numbers are crazy i don’t think it was watched that much.
Bonjour!
My name is François Lefebvre. I’m a broadcast research engineer at CRC. This blog helps me explore some thoughts about the future of broadcasting. The views expressed here reflect my personal opinions and not necessarily those of my employer. Please do not hesitate to write your comments or to suggest stories.
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