It’s no surprise that Americans love to watch the NFL. And thus, it should be no surprise that most of the Top 50 most-watched sporting events compiled by our friend Paulsen at Sports Media Watch are NFL games. In fact, 37 NFL games are listed in last year’s Top 50. That’s 74% of the Top 50.
And in the list, 9 out of the Top 10 are NFL games. The only non-NFL event in the Top 10 is the Opening Ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics. NFL Postseason games including Super Bowl XLVIII make up the first seven most-watched sporting events of last year. Then two regular season games and coming in at number 10 is the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
From there, NFL games once again dominate the list until you get to number 23 when the FIFA World Cup Final between Argentina and Germany finally breaks the streak tied with … you guessed it, another NFL regular season game.
The most-watched college football game for 2014 was the last BCS National Championship Game between Auburn and Florida State at number 28. After the NFL, Olympics take up eight spots in the Top 50. The World Cup takes three and World Series Game 7 and the BCS comprise the other sporting events the list.
So what is our takeway here? It’s that we love our NFL games. It’s no wonder why the networks pay billions to televise the games and we watch them in droves.
Here’s the Top 10 from the Top 50 Most-Watched Sporting Events of 2014:
# | Sport | Event | Net | Rtg. | Vwrs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | NFL | Seahawks/Broncos Super Bowl 48 |
FOX | 46.7 | 112.19M |
2 | NFL | Seahawks/49ers NFC Championship |
FOX | 28.5 | 55.91M |
3 | NFL | Patriots/Broncos AFC Championship |
CBS | 28.1 | 51.30M |
4 | NFL | 49ers/Packers NFC Wild Card |
FOX | 25.8 | 47.10M |
5 | NFL | Chargers/Broncos AFC Divisional |
CBS | 23.1 | 41.21M |
6 | NFL | Saints/Eagles NFC Wild Card |
NBC | 19.1 | 34.36M |
7 | NFL | 49ers/Panthers NFC Divisional |
FOX | 19.9 | 33.30M |
8 | NFL | Eagles/Cowboys Regular Season Week 13 |
FOX | 14.2 | 32.03M |
9 | NFL | Colts/Patriots AFC Divisional |
CBS | 17.8 | 31.69M |
10 | Oly. | Opening Ceremony | NBC | 17.0 | 31.69M |
With no Olympics this year, it will be interesting to see if the NFL can take even more spots in the Top 50 for next year.