As professional sports began to welcome crowds back again, millions more of us tuned in to watch games from the comfort of our homes. With many huge sporting events occurring every two or every four years, 2022 was a big one on the calendar.
Some events due to take place in 2020 took place in 2021, including landmark sporting events such as UEFA Euro 2020 and the Tokyo Olympics. Therefore, many sports fans were excited about the possibility of returning to some level of normality.
Stadiums full of supporters and a full sporting calendar gave fans something to look forward to again.
One industry that was particularly thankful that normal service had resumed was the online sports betting sector. Hundreds of online bookmakers had their markets shrink when plenty of events came to a standstill.
Traditionally, larger sporting markets such as the Super Bowl experienced major viewership as always. It is one of the most watched sporting events in the world and attracts millions of dollars’ worth of gambling from customers at both physical and online bookmakers.
The Super Bowl is just one of the events we will look at today.
On the subject of online betting, we’d like to take this opportunity to remind you to watch out for problem gambling. This can take a different form depending on the person who is gambling.
However, if you spend more money than you intended or spend more time gambling than you planned, these are warning signs you shouldn’t ignore. Identifying these issues as early as possible is key to getting help. Problem gambling can cause numerous issues.
You should be aware of the dangers involved and never chase your losses or gamble when emotional. Ensure your experience remains fun, and only gamble with money you can afford to lose.
Super Bowl
With over 200 million people tuning in to watch this year’s Super Bowl final between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals, it was the most-watched sporting event in America.
As over 60% of the entire population tuned in to watch the Super Bowl, it blew any other event out of the water with regards to American TV ratings. Millions more people also watched the game unfold in other countries.
One of the biggest draws of the Super Bowl is the impressive half-time show, which regularly features some of the world’s biggest music stars. Some of these have included Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, The Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga, to name just a few.
The Super Bowl is a huge sporting event on the American calendar and has a crossover appeal that many other sporting events do not have. It isn’t just the biggest televised sporting event of the year, but also the biggest across any genre in the United States.
Winter Olympics and Paralympics
Despite TV viewership being down for the Winter Olympics this year, the streaming figures were much higher. This attests to the fact that more of us are now consuming our media via other methods, including streaming, which is immensely popular.
Following the success of the delayed Tokyo Olympic games, which took place a year later than originally planned, the Winter Olympics is a different tournament entirely.
The Olympics remains the most popular of all the Olympic events, but the Winter Olympics still attracted millions of viewers from across the globe this year.
Sports such as figure skating had millions of people tuning in to the medal-deciding rounds. The same applies to other events, such as skiing and snowboarding. Norway topped the medal table, with Germany and China coming in second and third, respectively.
World Cup Final 2022
Commonly cited as the most watched tournament by quite some distance; the World Cup regularly draws in over one billion views worldwide. There isn’t another sporting event that comes close to its figures.
The World Cup Final is a marquee event that crosses time zones, language barriers and skin color to bring everybody together to celebrate the game of soccer. All eyes were on Argentina and Lionel Messi for this World Cup.
Many experts believe Lionel Messi is the greatest player of his generation, with the most Ballon D’or wins and having provided fans with some of the most magical and majestic moments of this century. The only trophy he had been missing from his stacked cabinet was the biggest prize of them all, the World Cup.
Drawing comparisons to legendary compatriot Diego Maradona, the only trophy that eluded Messi during his glittering career seemed destined to end up in his hands. This was his final tournament, occurring in the twilight of a mesmerizing career.
The World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world but adding this heightened sense of drama meant that billions of people were glued to their television sets from every corner of the globe.
The intensity of the expectation was palpable for fans on the edge of their seats, wanting Messi to slot in the final piece of the puzzle to cement his legacy as the greatest player of all time.
The stage was set in Qatar for a fairytale-like script, and the World Cup final against France was watched by an estimated 1.4 billion people worldwide. It has been widely renowned as the greatest game in the history of the World Cup, as France came back from two goals down to take the game into extra time.
When Kylian Mbappe completed his hat trick in the final stages of extra time, billions of people tuned in to watch the penalty shootout drama unfold, and tens of millions of Argentinians held their breath. They watched their heroes lift their third World Cup.
A total of 36 years after the legendary feat of the immortal Diego Maradona’s squad, they finally did it again, and the elation was immeasurable.
Argentina’s heroes came home victoriously, and their captain Lionel Messi proved beyond any reasonable doubt that he is the greatest player of his generation and arguably the best of all time.
Conclusion
As we touched on in the section about the Winter Olympics, the popularity of television has begun to dwindle. The events themselves still maintain huge popularity. However, the methods people use to watch these historic events are far more varied.
As the internet plays a much bigger part in our lives, people use their mobile devices and other devices such as laptops to stream these huge events thanks to the convenience of using these devices. However, events such as the World Cup still bring people together.
You only need to look at some of the scenes from across Argentina to see the thousands of people together rejoicing at their triumph to see that sport can bring people together in a way that not many other things can.
Even when we look at the Super Bowl figures, if 200 million people went to the cinema to watch a film, it would be the highest-grossing film of all time by far. However, these figures are commonplace for annual events such as the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl will almost certainly be the most-watched sporting event in 2023. Other top annual tournaments such as tennis grand slams and large soccer matches such as the UEFA Champions League final are also expected to be popular though.