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If you consider presidential politics a sporting contest, it’s worth noting that sports dominated television in 2024, accounting for 97 of the 100 most-watched programs last year. The other three spots were occupied by the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the awards ceremonies for the Oscars and Grammys. And as always, the Super Bowl—the crown jewel of sports media—lorded over the landscape of American TV, drawing in at least twice as many viewers as anything else. It will do so again on Sunday when Kansas City and Philadelphia face off in Super Bowl LIX.

show that only 16 political programs landed among the top 100 broadcasts, barely making a dent in actual sports’ near-monopoly. In 2023, without a presidential election to attract attention, the NFL alone accounted for 93 of the 100 most-watched programs (compared to 72 in 2024). For context, network hit sitcoms like Cheers, Seinfeld, and Friends—or dramas like E.R. and Law & Order—easily drew in 25 million viewers when they first aired, regularly . Nowadays, not a single scripted drama or sitcom—once television’s dominant force—makes the top 100 most-watched shows list. There’s more high-quality scripted TV than ever, but the audience is far more fragmented, choosing to watch on their own time. I only recently watched Breaking Bad, and it was as compelling to me as it was when it first aired a decade ago.

But nobody’s going to stream the 2014 Super Bowl, the 2012 presidential debates, or the Academy Awards from years past. These events demand to be watched live, together in the moment, and that’s what makes them so desirable to advertisers. In a world where mass simultaneous audiences are harder to come by, these events still reign supreme.

There’s nothing novel about the Super Bowl claiming its singular place atop the hierarchy of attention-gathering events on American screens and in American life. It held this spot for half a century, including long stretches that can be described as the golden age for non-sports network television fare. But as we gear up for Sunday’s game where the Chiefs and Eagles will battle it out while the Don Drapers will fight to land the top ad spots, it’s worth recognizing how the NFL has conquered our collective attention every single week, not just on Super Bowl Sunday.

We’re witnessing what I describe to my students as the “sportification” of media: Increasingly, sport seems to be both the focus and the driving force behind media. To understand why sports—especially football—are such a vital pillar in upholding the traditional mass media landscape, it’s also important to grasp why the value of most things associated with popular professional sports (player contracts, new stadiums, franchise ownership, sponsorship deals, media rights, and those Super Bowl commercials we are about to watch) continue to rise at a stratospheric pace.

Live sports are more crucial than ever to the continued viability—and survival—of both  broadcast TV and cable networks. The NFL’s 2021 blockbuster set of media rights deals, , guarantee that major American networks like CBS and NBC remain culturally relevant, no matter the fate of the rest of its programming. The sheer scale of their NFL audience ensures that these institutions will remain vital for the foreseeable future.

More surprising is the degree to which live sport has also come to be seen as indispensable to digital streaming services—the same disruptive new digital purveyors of video content that were . Amazon Prime is now streaming Thursday Night Football games; from DirectTV; and just this past Christmas, Netflix premiered two NFL games, with �����DzԳ�é performing at halftime. Apple TV+ is also getting into the live sports game, streaming Major League Soccer and some Major League Baseball games. And, as a devoted Arsenal supporter, I am all too painfully aware of this shift: To watch my team, I have to subscribe to multiple streaming platforms like Peacock, ESPN+, and Paramount+—services I wouldn’t have otherwise subscribed to but have become a necessity for me and other sports fans.

There is a long tradition of new mass media platforms leveraging sports content to cement themselves in the cultural landscape. From radio’s first live broadcast of a , to ESPN’s pivotal role in driving the rise of cable TV, to Fox’s successful bid for NFL rights in 1993, sport has long been the gateway to media dominance. Streaming services, following suit, are now making their own significant plays in live sports programming.

These matches made in sports media heaven have often been blessed by public policy, such as by the federal , which allowed leagues to negotiate TV contracts for all its teams without violating antitrust laws.

This Sunday’s Super Bowl will be the NFL’s latest celebration of its hegemonic control over U.S. television. Looking ahead, the league desperately needs to extend its overseas reach if it ever wants to attain the global status of the English Premier League, or even that of other American cultural icons like Taylor Swift. Nearly two-thirds of Swift’s Eras Tour concerts were held outside the United States at a time when 70 percent of the Super Bowl’s total TV audience remains domestic. That is why the NFL is eager to increase the number of its games played abroad, and why it wants to partner with Netflix and its in more than 190 countries.

Media’s growing appetite for valuable sports content is boosting other established sports, as evidenced by the and of the U.S. streaming rights to the next two FIFA Women’s World Cups. That appetite is also driving investment into new sports and new leagues. Just last month, a new kicked off, joining the rapidly growing landscape of new sports leagues, such as basketball’s , the much-anticipated women’s 3-on-3 league featuring WNBA stars.

The sportification of media isn’t a passing trend. It’s not a bubble that will burst even if we all return to the days of dropping everything at nine on Thursdays to gather around the TV for Friends or Seinfeld. The reality is, there are no other forms of recurring entertainment—except for sport—that command our collective attention at a set time and date. This convening power to gather an audience in real-time is only going to become more valuable over time as our attention increasingly becomes the world’s most coveted resource.

As we prepare for Super Bowl LIX, it’s a good time to remember that the game’s appeal extends far beyond the action on the field. It’s a marker of just how far sport has come, and how it continues to shape the media landscape and therefore our culture—one touchdown, and one ad spot, at a time.

Go Chiefs!