America has chosen its favorite sport. From its humble origins in 1920, the NFL has become a $19 billion behemoth in 2023. And it is only growing. It is already the richest league in the world in terms of revenue, despite being an American-only sport. But even that is not enough for the league. Roger Goodell had stated that the NFL’s goal was to reach $25 billion in revenue by 2027.

Although baseball is known as “America’s favorite pastime“, the days are not far when football will clinch that title. So, what do the numbers say? How much is football more popular than other sports?

Other leagues pale in comparison to the NFL

The NFL division of Yahoo! Sports took to X to share that the NFL had beaten all other leagues in terms of average viewership per game at 9.2 million. The next most popular league, the NBA, was at 711,000. Even if one combined the numbers for all other sports, it wouldn’t be larger than the NFL.

The NFL also has a lesser number of games at 272, while the NBA has 1,230 regular season games. And the finale of each season, that is the Super Bowl, is an unofficial national holiday. Last year’s Super Bowl recorded a viewership of 115.1 million. But not all games draw the same number of eyeballs. So, which game did the best this season so far?

The Cowboys vs. Eagles game saw record viewership

According to NBC, the game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles, which took place on December 11, was the most watched Sunday Night Football game since 2016. It recorded an average of 26.3 million viewers. Viewership peaked at 29.9 million from 6:15 – 9:30 p.m. ET.

The games on Thanksgiving Day also registered many eyeballs. In a custom survey commissioned by the NFL, Nielsen determined that over 45 million people had watched the three games on Thursday during Thanksgiving. This is more than a one-third increase in viewership from last year’s number, which was 34.1 million.

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But this number is only set to increase. The NFL is pushing to increase its appeal in foreign countries, especially Europe, and attract newer target groups such as young women by capitalizing on the Traylor saga. While soccer remains the most popular sport in the world, can football manage to take over?

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