# In which countries is football (ok, soccer) not the biggest sport? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 15, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829 "2009-06-15T14:09:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/81 "2009-06-18T18:41:49Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Yeah, but the things they call cleats here are what you call studs. Well, no, not quite. Cleats here include spikes, studs and “bars” (which here in America are what we really mean when we think of cleats, since they are worn by baseball players, and used to be worn by American football players). [Picture here of typical baseball shoe](http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/largeImage/index.jsp?LargeImageURL=http%3A//DSP.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/p4915616dt.jpg). But when he said he had to go buy “cleats,” he meant he was off to buy shoes that have studs, and since he is playing soccer, he will need to get soccer cleats, which lack a “toe cleat”, that is, a stud at the end of the shoe. American football cleats have such a stud, usually. ---
**Author:** ![Natty\_Bumppo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e480ec/32.png) [@Natty\_Bumppo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Natty_Bumppo)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/82 "2009-06-18T18:45:36Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > I’d wager that soccer is the #1 participant sport in America period. Just about every kids plays it at one point in their lives and the number of children between the ages of 6 and 12 playing it in any given season probably triples the number of people playing any other sport at the High School, College and Adult levels combined. > > In my modestly sized suburban town there were probably 200 kids playing football each year in the only high school. There were probably 10 times that number of preteens playing baseball and 20 times that number playing soccer. > > That said, football is unquestionably the biggest sport in the USA. > > Lots of people play soccer because it’s essentially free to play and very safe. For this reason it’s played here by kids and elsewhere by everyone. Accessibility and participation are poor measures. “More Americans play basketball than any other team sport, according to the National Sporting Goods Association.” - [Sports in the United States - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_in_the_United_States#Basketball) If there is a basketball goal nearby, all you need is the ball. Maybe it’s because I’m in Indiana, but I don’t know a single adult who plays pick-up games of soccer. Basketball, yes. Then again, I just counted 15 basketball goals on my street alone. Almost every other driveway has one. Basketball is also increasingly popular in China, and eastern Europe. It’s a fast-paced game that is easy to understand visually for fans. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/83 "2009-06-18T18:51:26Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > I’d take that bet. A lot of kids play soccer, but I’d say you’re overstating it by quite a considerable margin. Where I grew up, soccer was incredibly popular from about age 7 to 14 for boys and a couple extra years at the end for girls. Outside of that it’s like it didn’t even exist. Once you got to be 12 or 13 you started getting made fun of for playing soccer. I’m not saying that’s right, just that it’s how it was. But baseball, football, and basketball (especially basketball in my neck of the woods) were popular from birth to death. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/84 "2009-06-18T18:52:28Z")
I wonder where boxing ranks in Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/85 "2009-06-18T19:18:00Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > But when he said he had to go buy “cleats,” he meant he was off to buy shoes that have studs, and since he is playing soccer, he will need to get soccer cleats, which lack a “toe cleat”, that is, a stud at the end of the shoe. American football cleats have such a stud, usually. Yes, but they’re still called cleats here, and he was calling them cleats. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/86 "2009-06-18T19:26:30Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Yes, but they’re still called cleats here, and he was calling them cleats. Yes. That’s not the thrust of my post. My post is to point out two things: 1. “Cleats” in America are not just “studs.” They are also “spikes” and “bars.” 2. He wasn’t off to buy studs, he was off to buy studded shoes. You implied he was off to buy studs. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/87 "2009-06-18T19:26:54Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Where I grew up, soccer was incredibly popular from about age 7 to 14 for boys and a couple extra years at the end for girls. Outside of that it’s like it didn’t even exist. Once you got to be 12 or 13 you started getting made fun of for playing soccer. I’m not saying that’s right, just that it’s how it was. No argument from me, but I’d say participation in young soccer in my neck of the woods (which is a hotbed of national soccer support for all ages, including adults) was about on par with partictipation in young baseball or other summer sports activities. And while we’re arguing about cleats and spikes and bars… > [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > 1. “Cleats” in America are not just “studs.” They are also “spikes” and “bars.” In America, “cleats” are the shoes with plastic nubs on the bottom while “spikes” are the ones with the metal points on the bottom. I played a lot of Little League growing up and you wore cleats (spikes were not allowed), but once you got to high school baseball, you were expected to buy spikes because cleats were for little kids. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/88 "2009-06-18T19:44:28Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > No argument from me, but I’d say participation in young soccer in my neck of the woods (which is a hotbed of national soccer support for all ages, including adults) was about on par with partictipation in young baseball or other summer sports activities. Come to think of it, baseball seemed to be pretty well forgotten after little league, too. I’m honestly not sure if my high school had a baseball team. In fact I’m almost sure we didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/89 "2009-06-18T21:54:48Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > And while we’re arguing about cleats and spikes and bars… > > In America, “cleats” are the shoes with plastic nubs on the bottom while “spikes” are the ones with the metal points on the bottom. I played a lot of Little League growing up and you wore cleats (spikes were not allowed), but once you got to high school baseball, you were expected to buy spikes because cleats were for little kids. Where I grew up “cleats” were the really dangerous metal ones that were mostly confined to baseball fields. Occasionally they’d refer to the screw-in plastic spikes that football players wore, but not always. “Spikes” were the molded rubber nubs that were integrated into the sole of the shoe. > [@Cisco](#): > > Where I grew up, soccer was incredibly popular from about age 7 to 14 for boys and a couple extra years at the end for girls. Outside of that it’s like it didn’t even exist. Once you got to be 12 or 13 you started getting made fun of for playing soccer. I’m not saying that’s right, just that it’s how it was. > > But baseball, football, and basketball (especially basketball in my neck of the woods) were popular from birth to death. When you confine the definition to “people playing organized sports” I think soccer wins in a landslide. A lot of people play basketball in their driveway or pickup games at the Y, but I exclude that from the argument. While most people stop playing soccer once they get into high school and adulthood the proportion of their childhood spent playing soccer outpaces those 4 years. If you play soccer (usually in the spring, summer and fall leagues) from age 6 to 12 you are spending tons of cumulative hours on the soccer field in an organized setting. Soccer teams are bigger than baseball teams and are generally played by both genders. In my town there were no less than 12 teams at every age level organized into 3 different seasons. I spent probably 15 hours every week between March and November from the age of 6 to 12 playing soccer. I played little league from age 7 to 12 as well, but the leagues were smaller the season shorter and the cumulative time playing was much less. My sport of choice was football but I only got a brief 4 years of that to enjoy due to the rarity of organized play. My town only had 2 Pop Warner teams at each age level that traveled to other towns, there were probably 1/10th the number of participants than soccer, and this is a pretty football crazed part of the country. In the South the proportions probably change some, but in the bulk of the suburbanized East, Midwest and West helicopter parents had their kids playing soccer above all else. They aren’t called Soccer moms for nothing. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/90 "2009-06-19T00:31:42Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > No argument from me, but I’d say participation in young soccer in my neck of the woods (which is a hotbed of national soccer support for all ages, including adults) was about on par with partictipation in young baseball or other summer sports activities. > > And while we’re arguing about cleats and spikes and bars… > > In America, “cleats” are the shoes with plastic nubs on the bottom while “spikes” are the ones with the metal points on the bottom. I played a lot of Little League growing up and you wore cleats (spikes were not allowed), but once you got to high school baseball, you were expected to buy spikes because cleats were for little kids. While “spikes” can also refer to what older baseball players wear (reference the term being “spiked”), “cleats” as a term in America is usually generically used to cover all shoes with any sort of traction protrusions. Thus, I know plenty of baseballers who wear “cleats.” And, I think if you took a poll country-wide, you would find more who call the adult baseball shoe “cleats” than “sipkes”, a term usually reserved for what golfers used to wear, and what sprinters still do wear. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/91 "2009-06-19T04:37:50Z")
I believe basketball is the most popular professional sport in the Philippines. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/92 "2009-06-19T05:33:45Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > I wonder where boxing ranks in Mexico. Dunno, but is baseball, soccer, lucha libre, or bull fighting the big sport for Mexico? ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/93 "2009-06-19T05:36:56Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Dunno, but is baseball, soccer, lucha libre, or bull fighting the big sport for Mexico? Soccer by a large margin. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/94 "2009-06-19T06:38:43Z")
Well it’s pretty much established that soccer is the number one sport. Followed by, in no particular order, Rugby and Cricket. So why is it that you Merkins persist in ignoring the rest of the world and stick to Baseball and American Football? Resistance to soccer is futile and you know it ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/95 "2009-06-19T07:27:50Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > So why is it that you Merkins persist in ignoring the rest of the world and stick to Baseball and American Football? We have better options. The vast majority of the world doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/96 "2009-06-19T12:55:22Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > Well it’s pretty much established that soccer is the number one sport. > > Followed by, in no particular order, Rugby and Cricket. Says who? Worldwide, rugby is probably down in the dregs with curling and bobsledding. Cricket is up there, no doubt, but worldwide I’d guess it would pale next to baseball or basketball. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/97 "2009-06-19T12:57:55Z")
Baseball and basketball are definitely doing well world wide, especially basketball. The fact it is an indoor sport gives it an advantage over some other sporting choices… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/98 "2009-06-19T13:05:31Z")
> [@Wash](#): > > It’s one of those adverts from my youth that are indelibly stained on to my memory, along with the “J R Hartley” Yellow Pages ad and the Cadbury’s Flake ad with the woman in the overflowing bathtub. Just something about those screechy Scouse accents and terrible acting I guess. > > By the way, the correct line is “It’s what Ian Rush drinks. And he said, if I don’t drink milk, I’ll only be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley”. Ian Rush being a Liverpool (where the two kids are from and whose kits they are wearing) legend and Accrington Stanley being… well, exactly. Bloody hell. Wikipedia [does](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accrington_Stanley_F.C.#Television_advertisement) know everything- and you’re right. I thought I’d remembered it perfectly, but I forgot the “gerroff!” part, too. It also makes much more sense that way, since Ian Rush was already playing for Liverpool at the time. I remember the Flake bathtub woman! Not the JR Hartley thing, though. Do they still use that Magic Moments song in Quality Street ads? ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/99 "2009-06-19T13:36:28Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > We have better options. The vast majority of the world doesn’t. Better options, such as? FYI: The vast majority of the rest of the world has already made its choice which happens to be soccer, they don’t need anything else ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829/100 "2009-06-19T14:10:29Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Says who? Worldwide, rugby is probably down in the dregs with curling and bobsledding. Cricket is up there, no doubt, but worldwide I’d guess it would pale next to baseball or basketball. “Well, we don’t hear about it in America, so it must be a niche sport.” Rugby is the first or second team sport throughout most of the southern hemisphere, and is growing in popularity in Europe, too, though not as quickly as basketball. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-countries-is-football-ok-soccer-not-the-biggest-sport/499829.md?page=6)