world cup thread

[Taelas]

But in number of competitors? Not unless you count all the teams that couldn't make the 32. And in number of spectators? The numbers I see are in the high 10s of thousands for World Cup, and in the low 100s of thousands for NASCAR.

So, yeah, soccer probably is the biggest sport in many ways. But the claim about the World Cup isn't that clear.

--Pete

It is quite a bit more expensive to go to the World Cup -- which attracts spectators from all over the world -- than it is to go watch NASCAR. Still, the spectators at the stadiums in 2006 averaged just over 50,000 per match, which is almost the absolute maximum possible (all matches were sold out and filled to 99.5% capacity, according to this, and while FIFA have been accused of fiddling with numbers in the past, that was of TV viewers -- not spectators.)

I can't find any data on NASCAR spectators, so I'll have to take your word for it that NASCAR attracts "low hundreds of thousands".

That completely ignores the television audience, which absolutely blows NASCAR out of the water. Even this link, which debunks FIFA's exaggerated numbers, list NASCAR as 6th, with a 240 million viewers difference from the World Cup final.... or about twelve times more than NASCAR.