ABSTRACT

The attention paid to sport and, subsequently, the topic of sport public relations is increasing. A recent article in The Economist shared the attendance figures of the world’s most popular sports (“The Spectacle of Sports,” 2014). Based on average fans attending a game in 2013, the National Football League attracts more fans than any other sport in the world at 68,401. If total attendance over the course of a season is used as the metric, Major League Baseball earns the top spot with 74 million. On television in the US, the Super Bowl is regularly the most-watched TV event in history (Brown, 2014). When Forbes announced the world’s most valuable 50 sport teams in 2015, the average value of a team on the list is $1.75 billion (Badenhausen, 2015). Regardless of the metric, the attention to sport in the US-and worldwide-remains high.