Five most-watched sports events of all time

When you think of all of the televised events that have enough global appeal to essentially bring the planet to a complete standstill, you’d be correct in assuming that the majority of those events are within the world of sports. A large portion are some of the most popular sporting events, some of which happen every year, some only every four years. These are also the times when online betting sites becoming even more popular, as literally billions of people are invested in sports phenomenon taking place at that very moment.

No matter how often they happen, or even which sport they are representing, they prove to be some of the most-watched events in broadcasting history. So here we are, with the five most-watched sports events of all time, starting with…

5. Winter Olympics

The next Winter Olympics (pictured above) take place from the 6th to the 22nd of February 2026 in the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), an impressive two billion (yes, with a b) fans watched the previous Winter Olympics, which took place in Beijing in 2022. Despite that massive number, the actual worldwide audience figures have apparently been receding in recent years, with Italy sure to want to see that turned around when they host. For both the Beijing 2022 and PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, Norway has gone home with the most medals, so they’ll be aiming to make it a hat-trick in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2026.

4. Cricket World Cup

The 2024 Cricket World Cup is being co-hosted this year by the United States and the West Indies, taking place throughout the month of June. This year’s viewing numbers are still being tallied, but the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that the 2023 Cricket World Cup, hosted in India, broke the record for digital and broadcast viewership. Thanks in large part to the huge fanbases in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, it was revealed that over one trillion minutes had been viewed that year. This was reported to equal over 2.6 billion viewers around the globe at its peak.

3. Summer Olympics

The 2024 Summer Olympics are taking place in Paris from late July to mid-August this year, consistently proving to be one of the most popular sporting events in history. The last Summer Olympics took place in Tokyo in 2021, postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic. That year, the IOC announced that 3.05 billion people tuned in across broadcast and digital platforms. USA has topped the medal count for every Summer Olympics since the 1996 event in Atlanta, so they’ll be looking to make it EIGHT in a row this summer.

2. Tour de France – 3.5 billion

In operation since 1903, the Tour de France has been an annual event every year since, only stopping for the two world wars. The 2024 edition will take place from late June to late July, and the organisers are anticipating some huge numbers to be tuning in from around the world. According to Johnson & Wales University, 3.5 billion people watched the 2023 Tour de France at one point across the entire 23-day event.

1. Men’s FIFA World Cup

The next Men’s FIFA World Cup will take place in 2026, with games being played across the USA, Mexico, and Canada, running from mid-June to mid-July. The last FIFA World Cup was in Qatar, taking place in November and December 2022. According to FIFA, five billion people “engaged with the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, following tournament content across an array of platforms and devices across the media universe.” That includes 1.5 billion people – or just under one out of every five people on the planet – tuning in for the final between Argentina and France. With some of the games taking place in America next time around, we imagine that record will be absolutely smashed in 2026.