2. Game On!
Quite likely, the dominance of sports in modern American culture is only exceeded by the biggest non-athletic competition, politics.
Kantar Media’s report on total US advertising expenditures for 2014 – a 0.7% increase to $141.2 billion – supports this conclusion, as it stated the increase was attributable to the Winter Olympics, World Cup and the mid-term elections.
According to Kantar, the Winter Olympics alone was responsible for 80% of the 2.5% increase in network TV ad expenditures: Sports 2, Politics 1.

3. Big Bucks for the Big Players
PwC reported in Sports Outlook 2014 that the four sources of revenues for North American sports – gate receipts, media rights, sponsorships and merchandising – totaled $60.6 billion for 2014, and will increase 5.1% for 2015, to $63.7 billion.
Two exclusive sports networks, ESPN, at #3, and SkySports, at #4, are among the top 5 sports brands in the world, each with approximately $8 billion in annual revenues.
The other three are Nike, #1 and $25 billion; Adidas, #2 and $19.2 billion; and Under Armour, #5 and $3.08 billion.

4. Pro Leagues Livin’ Large
Traditionally, the Big Four US professional sports leagues are the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL).
From 2000 to 2015, the average valuation for each NFL team increased 250%; MLB, 468%; NBA, 475%; and the NHL, 233%.
From 2000 to 2015, the average revenue for each NFL team increased 170%; MLB, 224%; NBA, 79%; and the NHL, 92%.

5. Attendance Advantage
In terms of total attendance, MLB’s is more than three times the NBA’s and NHL’s, at 73.7 million, 21.9 million and 21.5 million, respectively, for their seasons.
MLB teams play 162 games, however, compared to 82 for the NBA and the NHL. The NFL is actually fourth in this metric, at 17.6 million, but its regular season schedule is just 16 games.
Change the metric to average attendance per game and the NFL is more than twice MLB, at 68,776 and 30,346, respectively, with NBA fourth at 17,809 and NHL fifth at 17,503.

6. TV Viewership Dominates
Of the top 50 viewed games on TV for the first half of 2015 (through 7/14/15), the NFL had 13; NBA, 9; NHL, 1; and MLB, 1. In fact, the top six viewed sporting events and nine of the top 10 was NFL games.
The next US professional league game was #16, game #6 of the NBA finals with the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers.
The 2015 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks attracted million viewers, with the NFC Championship game between the Green Bay Packers and Seahawks a distant second, with million viewers.

7. Putting Fannies in the Seats
Billionaires may own the teams; media may pay millions, even billions, for the rights to broadcast the games; and global brands may spend equally large sums for broadcast advertising, but it’s the billions of fans that make it all possible.
The strength of local fandom is evident in 2014 data from Scarborough that revealed at least 50% of the local population of 24 NFL franchises was team fans.
The NFL dominates this statistical category, as only 48% of MLB teams, 17% of NHL franchises and 10% of NBA teams can claim so many local fans.

8. Fueling the Best Fans Fight
NFL – Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, New York Giants, Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets (2015)
MLB – Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers, tied for first; St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs (2013)  
NBA – New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat (2014)
NHL – Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Edmonton Oilers, Winnipeg Jets and Vancouver Canucks (2014)

9. Everyone Takes a Slice
For the 2014 season, each of the 32 NFL teams received an even split of the $7.24 billion various networks paid to broadcast the games, or $226.4 million, BEFORE they sold a ticket, charged a parking fee or took a cut of the stadium concessions.
The eight-year MLB TV contract (2014–2021) will result in each of the 30 teams receiving $50 million per year. The NBA’s latest TV contract for nine years will funnel $89 million to each team per year.
The top advertiser in each of six professional sports for 2014 was Bud Light, NFL; Chevy Silverado, MLB; State Farm Insurance, NBA; Discover, NHL; Sprint, NASCAR; and FedEx, golf.

10. Soccer Makes Its Pitch
Football (or what Americans call soccer) is the most popular sport across the globe, with an estimated 3.5 billion fans, which is almost half of the total human population.  
For years (even decades) US sports analysts gave soccer little or no chance of becoming popular in the US, but the probability of that chance has increased significantly.
MLS, or Major League Soccer, may have had attendance of only 6.2 million for the season, but it was third in per game attendance, or 19,148, which was more than the NBA and NHL.

11. The Growing TV Audience
The United States/Japan final of the 2015 Women’s World Cup was #15 on the list of most-viewed sporting events during the first half of 2015.
With the proliferation of cable TV sports networks, Americans can now watch many of the matches of the English Premier League and Liga MX, the Mexican league.
More than 26 million Americans, both English- and Spanish-speaking audiences, watched the finals match of the 2014 World Cup between Germany and Argentina and almost 25 million watched the US vs. Portugal group match.

12. The Path to the Valuable Latino Market
More non-Hispanic fans watched the 2014 World Cup than Hispanic fans; however, the Hispanic viewers were the consumers advertisers craved.
Of all Hispanic viewers, 46% were younger than 35 and 42% were women, compared to 39% and 34%, respectively, for non-Hispanic viewers.
When measuring average minutes watched of the 2014 World Cup, Hispanic males were first at 1,048; followed by Hispanic females, 814 minutes; non-Hispanic males, 502 minutes; and non-Hispanic females, 320 minutes.

13. Big Money on Campus
Among the top 50 viewed sporting events of the first half of 2015, college basketball had 12 and college football had four. The Ohio State/Oregon National Championship Game was #7 on the list, with an 18.6 rating and million viewers.
For college basketball, the 2015 NCAA men’s championship game during March Madness between Duke and Wisconsin was #12 with a 16.0 rating and million viewers.
Men’s basketball generated $7.5 billion in TV ad spending from 2005 through 2014, including $1.13 billion for 2014, second only to the NFL’s $1.23 billion during the January/February 2014 playoffs.

14. Advertisers on the Gridiron and Court
Combined average TV viewers for the 2015 Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Championship Game increased 48.6% from the season’s Bowl Championship Series to the four-team College Football Playoffs.
The top five advertisers of college football during the season were AT&T, Taco Bell, Geico, Capital One and Home Depot. For college basketball, they were Capital One, Bud Light, Southwest Airlines, AT&T and All-State Insurance.
Although relatively similar and with some duplicates, Home Depot may suggest that more college football fans are homeowners, compared to basketball fans, while Southwest Airlines suggests that more basketball fans are travelers.

15. Games Go Mobile
The Consumer Electronics Association released a January 2015 study that revealed 90% of US sports fans viewed sports events and newscasts on TV during the past year, and most of it was live content.
In comparison, 16% of US sports fans viewed content on a mobile device, 12% streamed video on a smartphone and 9% via a tablet.
During October 2014, 72.3 million Americans spent an average of 99 minutes during the month with sports content on smartphones, a 42% increase in the number of Americans and a 35.6% increase in minutes since October 2012.

16. The Digitized Sports Venue
The owners/operators of US sports stadiums and arenas have certainly seen the future, as 80% of them had a distributed antenna system (DAS) and 67% had high-quality Wi-Fi, according to a June 2015 study.
In addition, 75.6% of team and/or facility owners said they had a game-day app, with team stats and live game information updates as the primary features, at 88.6% each.
If these apps offer advertising opportunities, then retailers could use them in conjunction with TV to reach local sports fans, matching their target-audience demographics as well as before- and after-game activities.