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The Super Bowl, that vainglorious championship game of American football, is less than a week away, and with this game will come grand estimates of just how many people around the world will be watching. American expatriates, European fans of the gridiron game and various curiosity seekers will tune in this Sunday to see the big quarterback duel between Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.

Despite what the NFL would like you to believe, however, the Super Bowl will not be the most-watched club football event of the year. That honor now belongs to the UEFA Champions League Final.

According to a study by Initiative Futures Sports and Entertainment in London, the Champions League Final was the most watched annual sporting event of 2009, bringing in an average worldwide audience of 109 million viewers, compared to 106 million for Super Bowl XLIII. The “total audience” numbers, which represent the number of people who watched at least part of the event, were skewed even more in favor of the Champions League. 206 million watched at least part of Barcelona’s win over Manchester United, while only 162 million saw part of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ victory over the Arizona Cardinals.

So what has made the Champions League Final bigger than “The Big Game(tm)”? One word: Asia.

The study showed that the NFL has a huge domestic audience and has made a few inroads into European television markets, thanks in part to its annual game in Wembley Stadium, but UEFA and its member clubs are well ahead of the NFL in terms of marketing their brands to Asian nations. No doubt, this was helped by the presence of Manchester United, a club that has marketed itself heavily in Asia, in the last two Champions League Finals. Barcelona is also a well-known brand throughout the world, as are many of the clubs participating in the knockout stage this year.

Last year’s Champions League Final also featured Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, arguably the two best footballers on the planet. They probably had a bit more pull with international sports fans than Ben Roethlisberger and Kurt Warner.

What’s more, the Super Bowl lacks a really catchy theme song. That never hurts.

Of course, since this is a World Cup year, neither of these games will be the most-watched football event of 2010. Still, the study suggests that both events are growing in stature worldwide, so it will be interesting to see how their audiences will compare as this decade progresses. It will also be interesting to see how well UEFA boss Michel Platini and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell handle their games’ respective financial issues. Goodell has contentious collective bargaining negotiations ahead of him, and they threaten to wipe out the 2011 NFL season. Meanwhile, Platini has to figure out how to deal with the issue of clubs carrying massive debts without undermining the popularity of UEFA’s prize club competition. As huge as these two games have become, neither is too big to fail.

The 2009 Champions League Final will be the 54th final of the tournament and the 17th under the current format. The final will be played at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on 27 May 2009. The stadium is located in the North of Rome along the river Tiber in the Foro Italico, about 4 miles from the city centre. It has a seating capacity of 82,000 and is one of the largest stadiums in Europe. It is the host stadium for two Serie A clubs in Roma and Lazio, along with the Italian National side.

History

The stadium, designed by architect Annibale Vitellozzi, sits between the Tiber river and the Monte Mario hill. It was built in 1952 as a venue for the 1960 Summer Olympics. In the outer grounds are various mosaics depicting different Olympic sports and similar statues in the gardens next to the stadium. Stadio Olimpico also hosted the 1987 World Athletics Championships. As a venue for the 1990 World Cup, the stadium underwent a good deal of reconstruction. A roof was added and the stands rebuilt closer to the playing surface, though retaining the “bowl” shape of the stadium. 2009 will be the fourth time the final has been played at the stadium, following Liverpool`s wins over Borussia Monchengladbach in 1977 and AS Roma in 1984, along with Juventus` win over Ajax in 1996.

Accommodation near Stadio Olimpico

Hotels

Rome has hotels in abundance, but given that the Stadio Olimpico is an hour and a half walk from the city centre, it seems sensible for those just wishing to attend the Champions League final to stay as close as possible. For those wishing to make the trip a bit more of a holiday, buses 32 and 280 and tram 225 from the centre of Rome serve the stadium. Some appropriate hotel choices close to Stadio Olimpico include:

Hotel Astrid, Largo Antonio Sarti 4, Rome. This hotel is located within easy walking distance of the stadium and offers garage parking.

Hotel Farnesina, Via della Farnesina 23, Rome. Also close to the stadium, offering full buffet breakfast and free Internet use.

Hostels

Rome`s many hostels, mostly located near the Termini train station, are a cheap and cheerful alternative to hotel accommodation, costing substantially less than a Manchester United hotel. One appropriate hostel is the Happy Days Hostel, Via Trionfale 146, Rome. This is close to the stadium and a mere 10-minute walk from Vatican City, but has an age restriction of 18-35.

Apartments

Various self-catering apartments are also available for rent near Stadio Olimpico, with prices falling in the range between hostels and hotels.

In a new experiment, I am going to try a weekly wrap-up of news stories that caught my eye but that I don’t think require pages of analysis as I am prone to doing

So, here they are, concise and hopefully interesting.

1. UEFA are expected to formally confirm in December that Wembley will host the 2011 Champions League final. The British government confirmed in May that there will be an exemption to tax rules for players appearing in the final and the decision awarding the final to Wembley will likely be rubber-stamped by UEFA’s next executive committee on December 16. Dublin’s Lansdowne Road is rumoured to be the favourite for the 2011 Europa League – the old UEFA Cup – final.
2. Bulgarian champions CSKA Sofia will take legal action against their national football union after being excluded from the European Champions League. CSKA were banned from European competition after the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) said in June that they had failed to meet licensing criteria because they owed money to the state and creditors. CSKA has retained lawyer Thomas Summerer, who has worked with some of the leading teams in the Bundesliga, and he told a press conference that “The BFU didn’t observe its own normative documents and didn’t treat CSKA as it should have done.” CSKA president Alexander Tomov has promised to reveal the complete truth about the club’s revoked license and has released the information on the CSKA website (Note: the link is a Google translated version of the page so may not be completely accurate in grammar or meaning but should give some overview to CSKA’s view of the matter).
3. Thierry Henry has revealed he will demand talks with Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola if he continues to be played out on the left wing. Henry had started the pre-season in a more central role but the return of Samuel Eto’o has seen him shifted out wide again. I can understand where Henry is coming from and I would agree that he’d be better off in the middle of the field playing almost as a number 10 behind the main strikers but to start this discussion through the press is perhaps not his wisest move.
4. While we are in Spain, can we spare some sympathy for poor Sporting Gijon? They were hammered twice (7-1 by Real Madrid and 6-1 by Barcelona) in the span of a week and my friends over at La Liga Talk suggest that their season might well be done already. Despite the vast number of injuries to top midfielders for Real (Sneijder,Guti, Gago), they are still loaded and Robben, Van Der Vaart and Ruben De la Red. De la Red was much talked about over the summer after his inclusion in the victorious Spain squad at Euro 2008. De la Red recently revealed that Tottenham tried to sign him during the summer and says he is keeping his options open when the transfer window re-opens in January. I think Real Madrid would be making a mistake in letting him go but with such a packed midfield someone else of quality would have to go. The question is who? Guti, while a candidate based on age, is unlikely to go because of his standing as vice-captain.
5. It’s a derby weekend with two of the more intense rivalries on display. In Serie A, it’s AC v Inter in the Milan derby while Liverpool and Everton contest the 208th Merseyside derby. In terms of world football derby matches or rivalries, what’s your favourite? I think I would choose Real-Barcelona (El Clasico) as the one to watch with the Boca-River Plate and Old Firm derbys coming in a close second.

Whenever I have a flashback to the late 70s growing up as a child in Wales, I have a very vivid memory of finding a leather soccer ball underneath the tree one Christmas morning. I remember sniffing the black and white checkered ball and smelling the strong scent of leather, as well as tracing my fingertips along the stitching which seemed quite intricate. Those memories still bring a smile to my face thirty years later.

Fast forwarding to this century, I decided to test the 2007/2008 Champions League Final ball to see how it compared to the balls of yesteryear. In fact, it’s been a few years since my soccer playing days have ended, so I haven’t had an opportunity to play with a professional ball since 2004 or earlier.

The Adidas Finale Moscow Match Soccer Ball seemed surreal to touch and hold especially knowing that it was a replica of the same ball used in the famous 2007/2008 final between Manchester United and Chelsea.

What surprised and impressed me the most was the thermal bonding technology that fuses the ball together and eliminates the need for stitching. Also surprising was how light the ball felt and the overall touch of the ball, which feels more like one of the plastic footballs I was used to playing with in the late seventies. The synthetic feel to it makes it feel like more of a ball for the masses instead of the soccer elite.

Kicking and passing the ball was a pleasant experience. The ball rolled across the grass smoothly and glimmered silver and gold in the sunlight of a hot afternoon’s day. It’s definitely an attractive ball to look at and majestic enough to sit on a mantelpiece, but it’s not too pretty to be struck across the pitch and into the back of the net.