Google to the rescue

[The Beatles]

I didn't ask this question btw, but rather just found it today.

"A cumulative total of 30 billion viewers tuned into the FIFA World Cup 2002, of which one billion watched the Brazil-Germany final alone."

Also, 1.3 billion for the '98 World Cup Final. (Maybe 9/11 really did change the world?) i.e. One-fifth of the world's population.

(Rugby and Cricket claim similar viewership figures or higher, but those are unconfirmed sources. They claim around 2 billion viewership. Not having spent much time in a Commonwealth country, I can't corroborate or contradict that.)

(The Superbowl of 2003 claimed 93 million viewers: don't know about the World Series.)


Of course, popularity is as nothing to other qualities. FAF isn't the most popular Promisance codebase, just the best. This is just to settle that argument about "the world's game".

[Gen. Volkov]

30 billion is 5 times the world's population. Obviously there are alot of repeat viewers. They are using different counting methods than are used for the SuperBowl, which just measures how many people tuned in, but doesn't distinguish between weather they tuned in once or multiple times. Just the first time. World Series claims a billion viewers per game. Obviously they are using World Cup counting methods. When they use accurate methods, as in the first list given, while the World Cup is first, the Superbowl is 3rd only to the OLYMPICS. So I'd say it's pretty popular.

[Nohc]

The Superbowl sucked this year...

[Gen. Volkov]

That it did. I'm hoping it's better next year. And I hope the Colts play the Bears. That would just own.

[Freenhult]

And then the Bears win! Chicago would be in civil disorder for atleast 2 turns.

EDIT: Yay...400 posts!

[Gen. Volkov]

*laughs*. And then the Cubs win the World Series. And Chicago is never the same again.

[Freenhult]

I think it would be burned down.

[Devari]

No need for anyone to get defensive.

Simply put, the only thing Beatles is saying is that, as a whole, the world prefers football over American Football or Baseball. Football is probably the most popular single sport in the world. This isn't a revelation or anything - Baseball isn't too popular outside American & Japan, and American Football isn't too popular outside North America. Kind of like Cricket - aside from a few Commonwealth countries, no one gives a flying hoot about it.

[Gen. Volkov]

Naw, baseball is more popular than you think. A large chunk of MLB players are from countries South of the US border. And Puerto Rico, which is part of the US, but not a state. And there are the Toronto Bluejays. But yes, soccer is the world's most popular sport.

[The Beatles]

You're missing the point of the stats. 30 billion people cumulatively watched all the World Cup games put together. The final, one game, was watched by 1.3 billion television sets. And knowing the poverty in many areas of the world, plus the social nature of the whole thing (I've never seen a World Cup final without at least 8 other people in the room, 20 at the highest), I'd bet that the actual number of viewers is at least 1.5 billion. I.e. about a quarter of the world's population, which sounds about right to me.

And notice my very last sentence. No need to get excited, we know baseball and American football are popular too. Just to settle that one argument about the "world's sport".

[Gen. Volkov]

I find that hard to believe Beatles. I really do. That 1/4 of the world's population watched one show. Maybe cumulatively 1.3 billion people did, at one time or another, tune into the 90 minute game. But I just don't think that 1.3 billion watched the whole match, when the next highest is so much lower. There have to be different methods at work. But I don't dispute the fact that soccer is the world's sport.

[The Beatles]

Maybe they count repeats as well, I don't know. In different timezones, though, they often have to show repeats, so maybe the results are actually valid, maybe 1/4 -1/5th of the world's population really did at one time or another in a space of 24 hrs watch the match. Hard to tell, of course.