The Super Bowl, of course, is the most watched television event of the year here in the U.S. But I always hear commentators talk about how so many billions around the world are tuning in. These numbers have always seemed very suspect to me.
For one thing most people I’ve met from overseas don’t know anything about American football. And those who do look at it as a wusified version of rugby that isn’t worth their time.
Another thing, does Nielsen or any other ratings service even track overseas viewership of American sporting events?
My guess is the network or whoever comes up with these figures is just adding up the total population of all the places the game is aired and then saying that it’s being broadcast to 2 billion people. The game may be available on some satellite network in, say, Japan or Iraq or wherever, but only a small number of American expats are actually watching.
No
Pretty much, the actual thing that was said was it has a POTENTIAL of a billion people. This was misquoted