Can you believe this? 106.5 million viewers watched the Super Bowl held in Miami, Florida on Sunday 7 February, which saw the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31- 17. This was the highest rating show ever, even greater than the astonishing M*A*S*H' finale which attracted 105.97 million American viewers in an era when there were fewer television sets
This year's Super Bowl also smashed the record viewership for a Super Bowl - 98.7 million people in last year's finale between Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers.
One can now perhaps understand why many are none to impressed with the Australia-West Indies one-day game viewership. Wednesday's viewer numbers were only 625,000 while a record low crowd of only 8,378 turned up to watch in Adelaide.
The Australian article spelt out that the rise of the Twenty/20 game has administered the last rites to 50-over cricket in spite of some players suggesting the 50-over game is better preparation for Test cricket than the Sheffield Shield competition.
Although such figures are concerning to those who administer cricket in relation to sponsorship issues, the cricketers themselves it appears are happy to play whether there is a small or large crowd as long as they are representing their country.
Some are suggesting there is a sense in which fans get bored with Australia's dominance but that hasn't applied in the past when Australia white washed England and the West Indies in the Chappell, Lillee and Thommo era.
With all this worry about viewers, there are more Australians each week attend local churches, worshipping Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, than attend sporting events, and although statistics are difficult to come, there are huge numbers of Australians who view the various Christian television programs on both live to air and pay television's Christian Channel's.
Recently in the UK, for example, the Songs of Praise on pay television out stripped those viewing English football. Imagine if this was front page news in the media!