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.

[Sports Media Watch]

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.