The Summer Olympics

Every four years, the world prepares for yet another display of incredible skills from the best athletes of different countries. The Summer Olympics is the most anticipated sporting event on the planet, with over 3 billion individuals looking forward to the start of each games. Even its opening ceremony enjoys an unrivaled viewership.

It also boasts of the highest number of participants. For example, the 2024 Summer Olympics that will be held in Paris, will have around 10,500 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) in the tournament. Furthermore, this event is usually broadcasted for free. While many sporting events will require a subscription to watch them, the Summer Olympics is made accessible to any interested person around the world in most markets.

The FIFA World Cup

Due to its popularity, many people would have sworn that this sporting event would be considered as the number 1 in the world.

With 32 countries competing against each other for the 18 karat gold cup, as well as the presence of all the biggest football nations of the world, the FIFA World Cup is indeed a peerless global event.
Billions of people tune in to watch this event. According to FIFA, the 2018 World Cup Final between France and Croatia was viewed by over one billion people.

Tour de France

While the latter two are held once every four years, the Tour de France is sitting pretty as the world’s biggest annual sporting event. This sport is a huge bike race around France, where about 200 cyclists must cover at least 3,500km within the space of 23 days.

In the past, this sporting event usually came up in July. But since the COVID-19 pandemic happened, the organizers of the tour are yet to find a fixed date. Just like the name would suggest, Tour de France races are done in France. The towns, cities, countryside and mountains of this enchanting country are used for the race. But some people do not know that the competition often begins in another country.

Watching Tour de France is for free. You can either watch it in person if you’re in France or connect to its broadcast. This event can be viewed by fans living in 130 countries on over 100 television channels. A report has it that the Tour de France is followed by 3.5 billion people globally.

The ICC Cricket World Cup

The Cricket World Cup may not be on the same level as that of football in terms of worldwide popularity, but it’s a highly valued sporting event in places like India and Pakistan. And going by the population of these two countries alone, which is over 1.3 billion people, cricket also qualifies as one of the most-watched sports in the world.

This tournament occurs every four years. The last event which was held in England and Wales in 2019 was won by England, after defeating New Zealand.

The Winter Olympics

If you like an assortment of sporting events that are done on snow and ice, then you will enjoy the Winter Olympics. This major international multi-sport was first held in Chamonix, France in 1924 and today it takes place every four years.

While the Summer and Winter Olympic Games are organized by the International Olympic Committee, the latter pales in comparison to the Summer event. The Winter Olympics has fewer countries participating. 91 countries are expected to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics in China.

The Winter Olympics attracts a global audience of around 2 billion people.

The Asian Games

Once every four years, Asian countries come together to hold the Asian Games. With the entire population of Asia amounting to 59.76% of the total world population, you can see why the Asian Games are not only incredibly popular in Asia, but also in the whole world.

This continental event features 42 sports and a total of 484 events. Participants come from 45 countries and viewership is estimated to be 1 billion people.

Rugby World Cup

This is a contest that comes up every four years and involves all the top men’s rugby union teams. It spans seven weeks and is overseen by World Rugby, the international governing body of the sport.

The Rugby World Cup of 2019 which was held in Japan has gone down in history as the most-watched rugby event after over 857 million people tuned in from around the world to catch the action in real-time.