American sports fans can’t help it: they love to compare everything they see, use, watch, or enjoy.
It’s a natural thing to do, and it happens in every country.
In the specific case of the United States, fans often discuss which sports and leagues are the most popular.
Several metrics and factors are used to determine the winner: average attendance to games, overall revenue, TV ratings, social media followers or interactions, and more.
The people at FiveThirtyEight wrote an interesting article and show us a key graph using average attendance to games.
The NFL is heavily favored in that exercise.
“Put simply, NFL games are massively bigger spectacles than contests in any other American sport, with thousands more people showing up to NFL stadiums during football season than we see at MLB, NBA or NHL games,” they tweeted.
Put simply, NFL games are massively bigger spectacles than contests in any other American sport, with thousands more people showing up to NFL stadiums during football season than we see at MLB, NBA or NHL games. https://t.co/8VFUMi16Lk pic.twitter.com/0rqyBusge4
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) February 6, 2023
There are several things to consider.
Attendance to MLB games is, on average, just under 27,000 while the NFL is just shy of 70,000.
NBA and NHL are next with almost 18,000 and close to 17,000, respectively.
We have to account for the fact that there are 17 games per team in an NFL season, and the number is 162 in MLB.
Additionally, NBA and NHL would have a problem with bigger venues from a visibility standpoint.
NFL is a huge league, but these are important factors to consider.
There is no question, however, that NFL is ahead of MLB when it comes to viewership.
MLB has to make sure to showcase its product in the most possible avenues to start making up some ground.
NEXT: Dodgers Manager Withholds A Bold Claim In 2023
