World Cup final most viewed sporting event

The Italy-France World Cup finale has the honor of being the world's most-viewed televised sporting event, according to research from Initiative.

The audience total was 603 million for viewers tuned in for at least a portion of the match. The average was 260 million viewers for the final, staged in Germany.

That makes the event double any other televised sporting event.

Worldwide viewing figures were up from the 2002 World Cup Japan-South Korea by 14 percent, showing the greatest increase in the Asia Pacific region and North America.

Viewership by women increased by 41 percent.

The NFL's Super Bowl finished second. That event was first in 2005, a non-World Cup year. The Super Bowl drew an overall an audience of 98 million from around the world, and increase of 5 million from last year.

The opening ceremony of the IOC Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, came in third, attracting an average live worldwide audience of 87 million.

But 249 million tuned in the opening ceremony at some point, as opposed to 151 million for the Super Bowl.

Finishing fourth and fifth, respectively, were the Barcelona-Arsenal match in the UEFA European Champions League Final, which recoded an average audience of 86 million, and the Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix, which attracted 83 million worldwide.