How Many People Will Watch Tomorrow's Champions League Final (Worldwide est.)?

May 22, 2007 6:46 PM

How Many People Will Watch Tomorrow's Champions League Final (Worldwide est.)? Just wondering how it compares with the Super Bowl.
posted by wfc123 to media & arts (7 comments total)

Here are some figures with the information you're after.
posted by sien at 7:09 PM on May 22, 2007

There are absolutely no vaguely realistic figures for global live TV audiences. Ever. Especially now that people watch on illegal peer-to-peer. The Superbowl figures of a billion or so are just for marketing purposes.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:10 PM on May 22, 2007

I will be glued to all 120mins and Penalties.

COME ON YOU REDS!
posted by gergtreble at 7:25 PM on May 22, 2007

A billion for the Super Bowl?
posted by rhizome at 7:38 PM on May 22, 2007

One estimate says 150 million. That is consistent with a few other numbers mentioned in the other links provided.

With uncballzer's comment I thought I'd stumbled upon a Deadspin soccer or hockey post full of comments pointing out, with some unintended irony, how they don't care.
posted by gspm at 8:25 PM on May 22, 2007

Another source suggests last year's final was watched by "209 million people, nearly 50 million more than the Super Bowl".
posted by gspm at 8:29 PM on May 22, 2007

Football - that's real football, not the american kind ;-) - is the global game. It's played and understood and loved worldwide, unlike American Football which has small pockets of fans outside the States but nothing more.

Having said that, this is not the World Cup and only the Champions League: of interest mainly to Europeans and not to any great extent to the average football viewer in Latin America, Japan, etc. This match has a bit of history about it (Liverpool came back from the dead two years ago to beat the same Milan side they face today in one of the greatest comebacks anyone's ever seen on the football field) and Milan are playing beautifully atm (witness their destruction of Man Utd in the second leg of the semi), which might bring in a few more viewers on the edges but unlikely to have a great effect.

People who think a billion watch the Superbowl are ridiculous, as rhizome's link says. But the potential audience for the Champions League final is more than for the Superbowl, simply because of football-loving audience out there....
posted by humuhumu at 10:35 PM on May 22, 2007