I was watching the Confederation Cup yesterday with Iraq playing South Africa and I got thinking about football. It’s the biggest sport in pretty much all of Europe (f.ex. hockey is bigger in Finland and maybe Russia); it’s by far the biggest sport in South America and most of Africa and probably among the top 2-3 pretty much everywhere else.
But in which countries is football not the biggest sport?
The USA, yes. But you guys need to invent your own sports
Canada. I’m guessing Hockey is by far the biggest sport there.
That suprises me. Huge as in “everyone plays soccer recreationally” or huge as in “given the choice between watching a soccer game on TV versus watching a hockey game, Swedes will choose soccer more often”?
Hockey is the biggest sport in northern Sweden, but most people live in the south. But then it’s pretty easy to follow both Hockey and Football since the major championships aren’t played at the same time and at least the National Leagues don’t overlap (that much).
Australia has multiple versions of football; my guess is that the AFL is more important than watching soccer. New Zealand probably is more into Rugby football than soccer.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh appear to pay much more attention to cricket. In India, a newly established “Premier” cricket league has 8 franchises that averaged $100 in cost to purchase; the league is expanding in a couple of years. There is a rival league as well, so cricket is clearly popular enough as a spectator sport to support major-level professional cricket.
The rest of South and Southeast Asia don’t really play much soccer. I’m not sure that there is some other sport more popular; it may be that sport doesn’t really play much of a part in the lives of the average Cambodian, for example.
Puerto Rico, if you’re willing to count a commonwealth. Possibly Panama and Venezuela–baseball is very popular in those countries, but I don’t know how it compares to soccer.
That’s correct: in Australia, soccer is crowded out by three other codes of football (but it still has a presence).
And Rugby games between Australia and New Zealand are even more important than cricket games across the Tasman.
And the most popular sport for women in Australia (as far as player participation in organised games goes) is netball
How many could guess that without looking at the spoiler?
This article indicates that soccer is more widely played than hockey, particularly amongst children and teenagers, but hockey, swimming and baseball were next on the list. For adults, golf is the most popular sport. It seems that in 2005,
That being said, there isn’t much doubt in my mind that the most watched sport, and the ones that people are the largest fans of and spend the most money on, is hockey. The NHL rakes in a ton of money from Canadians, both through the 6 Canadian teams but also with significant support to other teams close to the border in the US (I read that about 15% of ticket sales to the Buffalo Sabres is from Canada). AHL and Junior hockey also have fairly good followings in their towns, with televised major tournaments.
A few other countries where cricket is bigger than soccer: Sri Lanka, Afghanistan (that’s right–their national team just missed qualifying for the next World Cup and given funding have a great shot at making it next time), and Nepal.
Heck, hockey wouldn’t even come in third in Norway. Cross-country skiing would rank much higher in both participation and spectatorship (if that’s a word). Ice hockey is gaining popularity in Troll Country, but it’s still not a BIG sport, which helps to explain why Norway’s hockey team, ahem, fails to excel
More people probably xc ski recreationally here than play football, although most of those people don’t do organized races. But for TV viewership, football is definitely biggest.
You sure? I’ve just come back from three weeks in Nepal, and nobody even mentioned cricket the whole time I was over there. No cricket on the TV, no cricket pitches in evidence, no kids playing cricket in the street. They all knew the English Premier League teams though, and guys were walking around with Manchester United tops on. Whereas in India and the islands I’ve been to in the West Indies, you can’t get away from it!
Baseball is more popular in Venezuela. Interesting thread. Really opens your eyes to the meme that soccer/football is an all-consuming, world-dominating juggernaut outside the US and we’re assholes for not liking it.
