The Champions league final is undoubtedly the biggest annual event on the football calendar. Glory, millions of pounds in prize money and a place in history beckon, all played out in front of fans spread across more than 200 countries.
But how does this compare to USA’s biggest sporting event: the Super Bowl?
Global TV audience
There’s only one winner when it comes to TV audience, and that’s the UEFA Champions League Final In 2015, 380 million sets of eyes watched FC Barcelona beat Juventus 3-1, whilst Super Bowl XLIX only accumulated 114.4 million viewers in 180 countries, compared to the Champions League’s 200+ countries.
Prize Money
When it comes to prize money, the Champions league is far superior, once again with winners earning anything up to $108 million, in comparison to the Super Bowl’s $14.9 million.
Ticket Prices
The average ticket prices (face value) for the Champions League can be from anywhere between $78 – $433. The Super Bowl’s ticket averages at around $800 – 1,900.
Combined Social media followers (Facebook and Twitter)
The Champions league has a combined Facebook and Twitter following of 93 million (as of January 18 2020), whereas the Super Bowl has a combined total of 686,000 between the two social media platforms, another ‘winner’ for the Champions League.
Combined team values
The combined team values for Barcelona and Juventus is $4 billion, two of the biggest teams in the sport, you shouldn’t be surprised, whilst the combined value of the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks is $3.9 billion.
It is perhaps surprising how close these numbers are, thinking the NFL wages would have rocketed the values in comparison to the other footballing world.
The most recent Forbes rich list placed the Dallas Cowboys as the most valuable sports franchise on the planet ahead of the New York Yankees and Real Madrid.
Broadcasting rights
Everyone knows that it would cost you your left leg and right arm to broadcast either of these events. The total cost of broadcasting the Champions League final is $1.6 billion – around about half of the amount for the Super Bowl accumulated at around $3 billion.
Everyone knows the NFL and Super Bowl are in forever increasing popularity over the world, and these numbers will carry on increasing and could be on par with the Champions League in the future. The Champions league is in the whole of Europe, while the NFL is situated in the USA. The NFL continues to grow worldwide, however, and that will see these numbers grow.
As of now, the Champions League final is a ‘bigger’ sporting event, it will be fascinating to see the 2020 numbers.
ucl would have more than 400 million viewers if asian parents would let their children watch the game at night at 12 am
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