FIFA announced Monday that the 2010 World Cup final was seen by at least 1 billion people.
FIFA research shows that 909.6 million television viewers watched at least one minute of the match between Spain and the Netherlands.
When you factor in fans who watched online and in public viewing places, that figure is more than 1 billion.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony retains its spot as the most-watched televised event in the world with 984 million people tuning in for at least part of the four-hour ceremony.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was show in every single country and territory on Earth. Coverage of the competition reached over 3.2 billion people around the world (46.4 percent of the global population), based on viewers watching a minimum of over one minute of coverage. Those numbers are up eight percent compared to the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
“When you consider the increasingly fragmented media environment, where people face ever more choice in terms of the platform, place and time of their viewing selection, these results show that the FIFA World Cup remains a compelling spectacle for viewers around the world,” said Jérôme Valcke, FIFA secretary general. “The FIFA World Cup was shown in every single country and territory on Earth and with an unprecedented level of TV production geared to serve screens of all shapes and sizes, it was also the first major sports event to be distributed globally across all platforms, namely TV, radio, mobile, broadband as well as in 3D.”