• The Super Bowl is an American phenomenon. Despite its completely unavoidable presence in the U.S., Super Bowl Sunday is pretty much a nonentity outside of North America, where soccer is king. Even so, it’s still a much bigger moneymaker than any other single sporting event. Here’s a breakdown of how this works out.

Not-so-super viewership

• 106
  million people watched all of last year’s Super Bowl telecast, almost entirely in the U.S. and Canada
• 109
  million people watched all of last year’s UEFA Champions League final, a hugely popular soccer match

Super brand value

• $420M the Super Bowl’s value as an brand, making it the largest brand of all
• $230M the Olympics’ value, despite the fact it’s a much larger event
• $120M the World Cup’s value; it routinely tops the Super Bowl in total viewers

Super ad rates

• $312 million in Anheuser-Busch ads alone since 1990

• $3
  million the amount NBC charged for 69 ad spots last year
• $2.8
  million the amount CBS is able to charge per ad this year source

• Big game, big profits. Despite the fact that it’s just a single game, it often can top the advertising value of both the the World Series and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, which each take place over multiple games.

So why isn’t it spreading?

• complication American football is a much more complicated sport than soccer and basketball, which both have easily and quickly spread into China, for example. Blame the penalties.
• mediocrity The NFL had been trying to tap the European market for years with a secondary league which folded in 2007. Now the NFL has real games in Europe, a better strategy. source

• 85+ 3D sporting events this year; will people buy? source

• She smashed open a window with a golf club to get him out of his SUV. After Tiger crashed his car last night, Elin Nordegren pulled him out of the car herself. He was laying in the street when police found him. Best. Story. Detail. Ever. source

• $3.8 billion for the chance to host an aging Michael Phelps source

• The political icon was 77. Ted Kennedy, the leader of one of the nation’s most iconic political families, had been suffering from brain cancer in the last few years. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” a statement from his family said. Just a few weeks ago, he lost his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. source

• I wanted it as a teaching tool to teach people about football and then not make it simple. This is kind of the way the game has gone. The game is easy to start, but hard to be the best at. It is hard to perfect.
• Retired NFL coach and announcer John Madden • Discussing his still-popular video game franchise, one of the most popular video game series in history. And it has an effect on the players, too – they watch more football, go to more games and have more football knowledge than us normal people. To give you an idea, 43% of “Madden” players watch 16 or more hours of NFL programming weekly. Holy crap. Get off the couch, you bum. • source

• Y.E. Yang is the first Asian to win a major. The PGA Championship had some pretty impressive final-round fireworks, thanks to the showdown between Woods and Yang, the kind of showdown Woods usually wins by accident. Except he didn’t win this time, breaking his final-round streak. Maybe the media will learn not to be so biased in favor of Woods now that he’s had a year without a major. source

• 21 horses died before a polo match; none were beaten source