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Super Bowl Viewership Edges Up After Four-Year Decline

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Source: Statista

According to preliminary figures from Nielsen, Super Bowl viewership edged up slightly in 2020 as Fox’s telecast of the Kansas City Chief’s historical win over the Francisco 49ers averaged 99.9 million viewers on Sunday. Last year’s game, which saw the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever, had attracted an average of 98.2 million viewers, an 11-year low for the biggest game the American sporting landscape has to offer.

While the slight improvement over last year’s result marks the end of a four-year decline in viewership, the Super Bowl seems to have lost some of its appeal as must-see TV. While still the most watched TV event of the year, this year’s viewership fell 14.5 million short of the 2015 peak. Across all platforms (incl. Fox, Fox Deportes and several digital platforms) Super Bowl LIV drew 102 million viewers, up from the comparable total of 100.7 million last year.

Super Bowl Can’t Hold the Candle to the Biggest Game in Soccer

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Source: Statista

While Americans are getting ready for what they consider the biggest sporting event of the year, the 54th Super Bowl, the rest of the world couldn’t care less. Well that may be a bit harsh, but from an American perspective it’s easy to overestimate the global appeal of the biggest game in (American) football.

Speaking of football, soccer, i.e. the proper kind of football from a European perspective, far exceeds the Super Bowl in terms of global interest. The FIFA World Cup Final, played every four years to culminate a month-long tournament of 32 nations, really is the biggest game in the world, regularly reaching more than a billion people across the globe.

According to FIFA, last year’s World Cup final between France and Croatia reached an average live audience of 517 million viewers, with more than than 1.1 billion people tuning in over its 90 minutes. The 2019 Super Bowl pales in comparison, having had an average viewership of 98 million in the U.S. plus an estimated 50 to 65 million around the world.