Many Americans seem to think the NFL’s Super Bowl is the world’s most-watched sports event. To be sure, 114 million television viewers, thereabouts, is a big crowd.

But the Uefa (European) Champions League final easily wins the “most viewers” statistic with what has been around 380 million watchers, in recent years.

Tonight’s final pits soccer clubs of planetary renown, in Real Madrid and Italy’s Juventus, and will be played in prime time in Europe as well as Africa and, if anything, 380-million viewers seems like it might be a little low.

Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, and Europe’s elite clubs are well known and widely acknowledged to be the best in the world. They have lots of fans outside Europe, particularly in Asia and Africa.

However, the Champions League final does not overpower the Super Bowl in some respects.

The Super Bowl is a far more efficient vehicle for advertisers. The NFL has all sorts of stops in play, convenient to advertisements, and commercial spots tend to be seen by some huge fraction of the viewing audience.

Soccer fans love to talk about how the game offers constant action, in contrast to American sports, but that limits its advertising options to signage around the field and the halftime break — which is when every soccer fan heads to the bathroom.

According to this source, the NFL brings in more than $300 million in game-day advertising revenue for its broadcast partners; the Champions League does not really have one-game revenue.

The huge advertising numbers in the U.S. allow the NFL to take in around $3 billion in annual rights fees, almost twice as much as Uefa does for its nine-month product.

It is safe to say that soccer fans the world over probably are familiar with the best players at Real Madrid and Juventus. Especially the former, led by global superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and teammates Sergio Ramos, Gareth Bale, Luca Modric …

And it probably pleased most of the 380 million that Ronaldo scored twice in Madrid’s 4-1 victory. (The world is full of front-runners, and no one has won as many European championships as Real, and Ronaldo is the best player in the world, unless you prefer Lionel Messi.)

The viewers might also have been happy that the game was 1-1 at the half, thanks to a remarkable overhead goal by Juventus’s Mario Mandzukic.

The Champions League, more viewers. The Super Bowl, more money.

The NFL probably doesn’t feel too bad about that.