The annual sporting calendar is packed with top-class events, many of which have the power to bring nations to a standstill when they are staged.

Fans in the United States will argue that the Super Bowl is the biggest event of them all, while followers of soccer claim the World Cup stands head and shoulders above the rest.

To settle the argument, we’ve assessed television viewership numbers to produce this definitive guide to the most watched sporting events in the world.

Soccer World Cup

The 2018 World Cup in Russia was watched by more than 3.57 billion people, equating to over half of the global population aged four and over.

The final between France and Croatia was seen live by a combined 1.12bn viewers worldwide, with the former becoming World Cup winners for the second time.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has forecast that the World Cup in Qatar will be the most watched in the tournament’s history, with five billion viewers expected to tune in.

Figures for the 2026 tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada could be even higher, cementing soccer’s status as the number one sport on the planet.

Summer Olympic Games

A total of 3.05 billion unique viewers tuned in to coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo across linear television and digital platforms

Official coverage on Olympic broadcast partners’ digital platforms generated 28 billion video views in total – representing a whopping 139 percent increase compared with Rio 2016.

This figure underlined the changing media landscape and Tokyo 2020’s status as the first streaming Games and the most watched Olympics ever on digital platforms.

The International Olympic Committee’s official social media handles also generated 6.1bn engagements – including video views, shares, comments and likes.

Tour de France

It is estimated that around three billion people watch the Tour de France globally each year, although that figure is down on the all-time record.

That was set in 2018 when an incredible 3.5bn people tuned in, putting it just behind the soccer World Cup staged the same year.

This year’s Tour de France, which was won by Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard, attracted the biggest TV audience in Europe in terms of hours viewed since 2015.

TV2 Denmark scored the highest peak viewing share of the entire race - 82.35% for its coverage of Stage 2 that took in the Danish scenery from Roskilde to Nyborg.

Cricket World Cup

Global TV viewership for the 2019 Cricket World Cup in England was 2.2bn, with the final between England and New Zealand responsible for more than 70% of that tally.

The event was televised into over 220 territories on 46 TV channels, and video content had over 4.6bn views, with 3.5bn minutes watched across Facebook and YouTube.

The final was one of the most dramatic cricket matches ever played, with a Super Over needed as the teams were tied at the end of regulation.

The Super Over was also tied, meaning England won on the boundary count-back rule having scored 26 boundaries to New Zealand's 17.

Winter Olympics

The 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino garnered 2.1bn viewers worldwide, despite not hitting the spot with sports fans in North America.

Some events were seen more than 18 hours later in the United States, while the Canadian ice hockey team made an early exit from their tournament.

Despite this, global viewer hours hit 10.6bn, with each potential viewer consuming an average 3.5 hours of dedicated Winter Olympics coverage.

Global broadcast hours increased by an astounding 57% on Salt Lake 2002, with significant increases across Europe, Asia and South America.

Boxing

In the days when big boxing matches were still available on traditional television channels, The Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 was a major global event.

The heavyweight title bout featured undefeated and undisputed champion George Foreman squaring off against former champion Muhammad Ali.

Staged in front of 60,000 people in Zaire, the epic fight saw Ali emerge victorious after wearing out Foreman with his infamous rope-a-dope tactics.

It was estimated that nearly 47% of all TV sets in the US were tuned in to the contest and two billion viewers watched in 80 nations worldwide.