Gridiron racking up global gains

The National Football League, which will crown its champion on Sunday in the quintessential American sporting spectacle of Super Bowl 49, is gaining fans globally - with China leading the way.

That's one of the findings in a study released on Wednesday by sports marketing research firm Repucom, which found that since 2013 interest in the NFL among the Chinese population has jumped from 1.7 percent to 7.9 percent.

The jump of just over six percentage points represents an extra 31 million people saying that they are now NFL fans.