World's most popular sports

[bigi]

text

Interesting, especially #2 whatever it is kills all US sports together in terms of # of fans.

 

[TheVrolok]

Not really a surprise here. American Football is huge in the US, but minimally so elsewhere. The other sports have world wide appeal (well maybe not Cricket, but India is big ).

 

[zinfamous]

Cricket, only because India has like 3 billion people, and all with pretty much shitty taste about everything...(except food. Their food rocks)

 

[postmortemIA]

ahaha basketball only popular in 'murica?

 

[zinfamous]

ahaha basketball only popular in 'murica?

yeah, I wonder what their cutoff is. Basketball is huge in eastern and northern Europe (Serbia, Yugoslavia, Lithuania especially) and western countries like Italy and France. Not to mention growing steadily in China and, I think, Korea.

Baseball only huge in US and Japan? Are you effing kidding me? The entire MLB is basically composed of various Central American countries. It's popular in Canadia. It's huge in Korea. I'd argue that it is more popular in Asia than is soccer.

 

[Ns1]

cricket seems popular in every former UK colony.

 

[amyklai]

The strangest thing is that they list regional popularity = Europe, Africa, Asia, America, Australia for American Football and then only Amercia for basketball.

I can only speak from a European POV, but if anything, it should be the other way around. Basketball isn't exactly huge here, but there are local teams, leagues and championships that do get some coverage.
American football is almost completely nonexistant, it gets way less coverage and the only thing that gets coverage at all is the NFL (like, once a year in the mainstream media, the superbowl), there's no media coverage on local teams at all.

 

[KMFJD]

stupid list....field hockey at 3?

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

American Football is not very popular outside the US, I sincerely wonder whether they don't happen to count Rugby under that as well. Basketball is more popular in Europe than American Football to my knowledge.

 

[alien42]

cricket seems popular in every former UK colony.

that's why i call it the scourge of the British empire.

 

[mvbighead]

Soccer I can see being especially popular EVERYWHERE because all you need is a ball, an open field, and some 'goal posts' which many can make do with a couple of rocks. Can be played pretty much by anyone of any income, which becomes especially important in 3rd world countries.

 

[Ns1]

that's why i call it the scourge of the British empire.

I find it much more interesting than baseball.

 

[CPA]

Cricket is the most boring thing ever. And any event that includes a tea intermission is not a sport. Hitting a ball fast on a table does not make table tennis a sport either. And don't give me that "do you know how much endurance those table tennis players need?" Pleeeeeeaaaaaase.... And finally, golf is as the old saying goes "a leisurely walk spoiled by a little ball"

 

[Ns1]

Cricket is the most boring thing ever. And any event that includes a tea intermission is not a sport. Hitting a ball fast on a table does not make table tennis a sport either. And don't give me that "do you know how much endurance those table tennis players need?" Pleeeeeeaaaaaase.... And finally, golf is as the old saying goes "a leisurely walk spoiled by a little ball"

Cricket is like baseball, except they score WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY fucking more. I mean it's basically baseball w/ football scoring.

 

[sdifox]

Cricket is the most boring thing ever. And any event that includes a tea intermission is not a sport. Hitting a ball fast on a table does not make table tennis a sport either. And don't give me that "do you know how much endurance those table tennis players need?" Pleeeeeeaaaaaase.... And finally, golf is as the old saying goes "a leisurely walk spoiled by a little ball"

Any activity that requires participants to wait for TV commercials to be over before they can resume play is not a sport

 

[BurnItDwn]

#1 and #2 seemed pretty obvious, surprised about field hockey though.

 

[Red Storm]

Any activity that requires participants to wait for TV commercials to be over before they can resume play is not a sport

Which sport would that be?

 

[PokerGuy]

#1 and #2 seemed pretty obvious, surprised about field hockey though.

Same here. Not at all surprised by soccer obviously, and there's zillion people in india so cricket being up there is not surprising either.... but field hockey? That's surprising. I would not have guessed that one being in the top 5.

 

[Ns1]

Which sport would that be?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_timeout

 

[SKORPI0]

 

[CPA]

Any activity that requires participants to wait for TV commercials to be over before they can resume play is not a sport

Go to a high school game. Not required.

 

[sdifox]

Which sport would that be?

NFL

 

[Homerboy]

Any activity that requires participants to wait for TV commercials to be over before they can resume play is not a sport

Uhh... so baseball, basketball, football, soccer (half time)... pretty much anything that is nationally/internationally broadcast? Except NASCAR?

 

[CPA]

Cricket is like baseball, except they score WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY fucking more. I mean it's basically baseball w/ football scoring.

That's because the game lasts two fucking days!

 

[sdifox]

Uhh... so baseball, basketball, football, soccer (half time)... pretty much anything that is nationally/internationally broadcast? Except NASCAR?

no, half time/quarter break is not waiting for commercial... there is a fixed amount of time for that. Nor is the inning change, or time out. NFL is the one that actually has players standing around waiting for commercials to be over.