Good people of America, it’s time to run to your pickup trucks. Grab your pitchforks and shotguns, and don’t forget your arguments about low scoring, players taking dives, and inconsistent officiating. The Super Bowl has been dethroned as the world’s most-watched sporting event.
The report has been compiled by Future Sports + Entertainment, an arm of leading international analysts Initiative, and details how the 2009 Champions’ League final between Manchester United and Barcelona was the most-watched sports event worldwide. It attracted 109m viewers in its entirety, and “reached” 206m people, who saw at least part of it live.
The Super Bowl, traditionally the biggest TV event in global club sport, attracted 106m live viewers for the whole thing, with a reach of 162m. –The Independent, via The Sports Economist.
European soccer has really grown on me over the last five years–hey, it beats the hell outta baseball–and since it’s kinda the world’s game anyway, I’m not terribly upset to hear that the Final (which I watched intently) enjoyed more total viewership than our most recent Super Bowl (which was on at some guy’s house I was getting crazy drunk and eating all of his celery.) Enjoy your little record, Europe, and try not to get it too dirty between now and Sunday, when we’ll be taking it back.
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A 3-1 soccer match is a 21-7 football game.
@Slappy – Using that reasoning what would a 10-3 football game be in soccer? YOU PUTZ
Bitch please..soccer? So if the world decides to jump off a cliff..
Keep soccer where it belongs..not in the US.
The Detroit Lions would go undefeated in the EPL. NO ONE DENIES THIS.
“A 3-1 soccer match is a 21-7 football game.”
The difference is, 21-7 football game is something I give a shit about.
NOT IN MY BACKYARD!!!
THESE COLORS DON’T RUN!!!
@DimpieChimplins:
2-1 (2 scores vs 1 score)
Ain’t rocket science, chump.
If the point is the number of scores, an arbitrary measure that this type of score is worth ‘x’ points while other types of scores are worth ‘y’ points doesn’t change the fact that it was a 2-score to 1-score game.
And a 21-7 American football match isn’t something I give a crap about, Tim Was Tim. The homoerotic subtext of reaching between another man’s legs to start the action which culminates in a bunch of other men in a pile grabbing and groping at each other makes me uncomfortable ;)
Thank you for your clarification, Slappy. Now I can breath easy knowing we have people like you pointing out the differences in scoring between soccer and football.
I challenge you though to illustrate the difference between a cricket score and a football score. Can you do it?
I don’t think it’s entirely surprising considering Champions League is a continental club competition and the Super Bowl is just US club sport. How many people watch the FA Cup Final? Probably still really good numbers, but not Super Bowl numbers.
Besides, probably neither those numbers compare with the Olympics (summer, obviously) and the World Cup Final.
But the Olympics are spread out over three weeks. And they suck.
If you watch football and all you can think is gay thoughts, don’t blame the game.
thank you for posting about soccer, its a nice break from the norm
it was also on a wednesday
Yeah but what’s a 24-24 football score in soccer?
You play forever until somebody wins, right?
/McNabb’d
Soccer is like a fat white guy who lives in a basement: slow, boring, often on the defensive, void of intellectual stimulation and neither is ever good for scoring. I hate soccer with the passion of a dozen drunk American Indians who just lost the keys to the casino. It is founded on the precept that you should always be on the defensive and the worst part is any pathetic, poor, desperate spawn in the middle of a ghetto can play it.
But I’d sure like to bang Posh Spice.
actually landon donovan sucks compared to the rest of the world. thats why hes never made it at the international level.
and the beauty of the game is that anyone can play it at any time, like pick up games of basketball
i dont know why i feel the need to explain a sport to you, its really not that difficult to understand
Football vs. FOOTBAWWWWW arguments never fail to be entertaining.
landon donovans labia!! it amazes me how you can think football (soccer) is boring. american football you have breaks every 5mins with adverts in between plays. ive just been watching your superbowl and ive switched channels cos its just so fragmented and boring. our english rugby team could win your superbowl! rugby players are far more physical and fitter than nfl players, nfl players look like a bunch of pussies with shoulder pads! football (soccer) played at the highest level is a far more interesting spectacle imo. its just a shame that mls is void of any decent players apart from david beckham who is pretty much at the end of his career. if you could watch the premier league every week like i do then you would know that football just whoops your american version in every way. also how can you even call nfl football when most of the sport is played using your hands.. stupid!! anyway all i will say is the rest of the world can’t be wrong can they?
Landon donovans labia…my word, you must be on the wind up. Don’t get me wrong, I watch NFL quite regularly and enjoy it, but to say that about football (soccer to you morons)is absolutely ridiculous. Fair enough if you don’t like football (soccer), but to favour a sport which is predomiantly spent standing around or viewing dominoes pizza adverts on an ‘entertainment’ basis is ludicrous. Football is played at a much faster pace with few breaks in play, and despite what you may say (and probably proves just how little you actually know about the subject your talking about) is primarily an attacking game-unless of course your watching spurs at the bridge. As man utd fan said above, the rest of the world can’t be wrong, and maybe if americans actually watched more international football and not just suffer the joke that is MLS, perspectives may change.
I’m a big supporter of both sports, both have their own pros and cons. Most Yanks won’t ever give “soccer” a shot except maybe the younger crowd who may have actually played the game. I myself am from Ohio, and have played both sports all my life. I play American football in the fall obviously and “soccer” the rest of the year. Even as a wideout I have to train for “soccer” season to get into shape because the form you must be able to perform in is much more physically exhausting than american football. As for the whole rugby vs. football argument your sadly mistaken mate, you find me one rugby player who can throw as accurately as the QB’s in the NFL and I’ll give you due credit. Also you wont find any rugby players able to knock over the 300lb+ linemen so you theory is very flawed. Rugby players play rugby because thats their game, football players play football because that their game. Neither is better at the others sport so leave it be. Back to “soccer” the MLS won’t help the Yanks here enjoy the sport too much but I can definitely see the interest starting to build. So heres to them getting better and giving the rest of the world great competition because thats what the sport is about. Not the amount of people watching a certain event on the television.
landon donavon is acquitting himself quite well in the premiership at the moment. he’s already bagged his first goal and has a few assists. he has contributed a great deal to everton, who are a top side in the EPL.
oh and a slightly contrived look at rugby v american football. [www.youtube.com]
both are very hard hitting sports, but i’d still prefer to be wearing all that padding if i had to take a hit.
yeah rigsby landon donovan has been really good. watched him last night against chelsea and he was really good. hope he stays at everton will be good to watch him week in week out.
Stupid fucking Americans.
The term football surely relates to the use of the foot. Both rugby and football were so called invented in England, although at the minute not being that great at any of them.
So American football does not relate to what the game is about? More like American rugby.
To answer your question Chelsea fan 2…. I actually played in a game of rugby v American football. A two legged tie. And both teams were made up of pretty experienced players. (ie. some players had played top level at club level) And the result….. 2 nil to rugby.
American football offers little stamina alot of power but can you continue that for longer than a minute of play? And as for the quarterback? We adapted your game and treated it like rugby, and ran out winners hands down.
As for real football (soccer) the world has already answered which is more popular.
The youth in America know this which is why its one of the most up and coming sport in the USA.
And please don’t get me started on the world series….! Jokers!
Hey guys, I have a question. Why American Football is call Football while you kick the ball less times than hold it with your hands?
you soccer haters are all fucking retarded. just an fyi. I love football just as much as the next american. but soccer is the world’s sport. its not even comparable to football. nobody outside of the usa likes football. what does that say? even in this country where dumbasses like you hate soccer, it is still played played by about a million more people than football is in the rest of the world. me, along with the rest of the world, would rather watch leo messi for 90 minutes than tom brady throw a football for half a football game
I am a huge NFL (Bronco’s), NBA (Jazz fan), MLS (RSL), EPL (Spurs and the bomb), and La Liga (Barca is pretty cool) fan. I like to watch all sports (baseball ain’t a sport) but I have come to realize that American’s don’t like soccer because
a) They don’t have the patience to sit and watch a full game, they like constant action such as b-ball and NFL/College
b) They realize that they can’t play it themselves, American’s don’t have the endurance to play soccer so they play Baseball and call it a sport.
c) They hate to lose. It is the one sport were they aren’t the best, or one of the best at that sport. They then begin to slam soccer because the can’t win in soccer.