The 2024 UEFA Champions League final brings the curtain down on European club football before attention turns to Euro 2024 in Germany and the 2024 Copa America in the United States.
Wembley Stadium plays host to the match between Real Madrid, the record 14-time champions of Europe, and Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund. Los Blancos are bidding to win the trophy for the sixth time in 11 seasons, while BVB are chasing their first title since their 1997 win over Juventus.
UEFA is projecting that coverage of the match will reach nearly half a billion people across the world. The live viewership itself is set to hit the nine-figure mark as fans tune in to watch the most prestigious club match of all at at England's national stadium.
But how do those figures stack up against the Super Bowl? The Sporting News compares the two 2024 showpiece events to find out which earned more worldwide attention.
LIVE: Sporting News brings you up-to-date coverage of the 2024 UCL final at Wembley Stadium
Is the Champions League bigger than the Super Bowl?
This is, of course, a subjective question, and fans of either sport will have partisan points of view. But in terms of viewing figures around the world, the UEFA Champions League final is regularly watched by more people than the Super Bowl.
While the audience in the United States is traditionally much higher for the annual NFL title match, the increasing popularity of soccer in the U.S. means these figures are getting closer. If you include the world at large, the Champions League numbers are significantly greater.
How many people watched Super Bowl 58?
The engrossing battle between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, not to mention Usher's halftime show and Taylor Swift's dramatic but successful attempt to fly to Las Vegas in time for the game, made Super Bowl 58 one of the best in recent memory.
That fact was underlined by the viewing figures. CBS Sports said the game drew 123.4 million average viewers in the US alone, an increase of seven percent from the previous Super Bowl.
Not only was this the most-watched game in NFL history, it got the highest viewing figures of any U.S. TV broadcast since the historic Apollo 11 moon landing of 1969, the BBC reported.
Audience insight company Nielsen said a record 202.4 million people watched at least part of the Super Bowl in 2024.
How many people will watch the 2024 Champions League final?
UEFA's estimated global audience for the 2024 Champions League final would dwarf the viewership of the Super Bowl — and even just taking live viewership into account, the club football match would take the cake.
European soccer's governing body said in a statement: "The match will be aired in more than 200 territories and is projected to reach 450 million unique people globally across all media touchpoints.
"The final will attract an estimated live global average viewership of 145 million via in-home broadcast, live streaming or by fans watching out of home in bars, restaurants, or fan parks. Complementing the live viewership, fans worldwide will join in on social media, where UEFA Champions League Final content will generate an estimated 3.3 billion social and UEFA web & app interactions."
Those figures largely match those of the 2023 final, in which Manchester City beat Inter Milan 1-0 in Istanbul.
How does the FIFA World Cup final compare?
According to figures released by FIFA, the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar was watched by a global audience of nearly 1.5 billion people across television and streaming platforms. That's more than 12 times the viewership of Super Bowl 58.
Of course, such comparisons aren't entirely fair. Even if we assume FIFA's number is accurate, the World Cup final is an event that only occurs every four years at the end of a national team tournament.
Global viewership is always likely to be higher for such an occasion. The Tokyo Olympics — which were held in 2021 under COVID-19 restrictions — had more than 3 billion unique viewers across 16 days, according to the International Olympic Committee.
