Why is cricket the most second popular sport in the world, but not in the U.S.?
Sorry. Why is cricket the second most popular sport in the world, but not in the U.S.?
(I was holding my baby while typing.)
I think I’d need a cite about the second most popular aspect, I shouldn’t think it’s in the top 10 - swimming, cycling, running . .
Do I need to show that ?
I thought it was commonly known.
Add together the populations of these countries- India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Then consider how popular cricket is in those countries - playing and spectating.
At last.
Where have you been?
A topic truly worthy of Great Debates.
It depends entirely on how you decide on the way you want to measure and determine.
- Spectators through the gate?
- TV audience?
- Total money raised from 1 & 2 above?
- Percentage of population and media that obsess over the topic?
Cricket falls far short of several other sports on at least two or three of the above criteria.
On a population basis (4 above) I agree that cricket is up there near the top, after you take into account the populous countries that compete in the sport. However, on a financial basis, including dedicated TV channels, both US baseball and American football would have a better case for claiming the number two spot after soccer (I’m assuming you count that as number 1 on all counts).
Because the US has it’s own version of a cricket-like game (baseball) so we don’t need no stinkin’ Limey games in the Land of the Free! Besides, if we Americans actually played a sport where other nations compete, then our local teams wouldn’t be world champions without a fight now would we and where would the fun in that be now? 
I think it’s also because someone was clearly taking the piss when they made up the positions for cricket. There’s no way in hell there is a professional sports player who gets paid a decent salary and is internationally famous who plays a position called ‘silly mid off’ or ‘silly mid on’ or get paid to get his leg over unless it’s in dodgy porn. I just don’t buy it, and don’t know why any of my oh-so-reasonable countrymen should either. Or as they say Down Under - [Auzzie accent]Pull the other one, mate, it plays Jingle Bells.[/Auzzie accent] 
I also object to any sport being called ‘professional’ when it includes tea and meal breaks during play for both teams all at once!!!
YMMV.
There’s a pretty good academic book, The Tented Field. One part of it addresses the OP’s question. Apparently part of the decline in the US was the cricketers there moving over to baseball when that got organized. Another aspect was the view of cricket as being a foreign game. I have the book but it’s in storage back in the US.
Cricket never has left the US. There are clubs all over the country.
You’re joking, right? Or are you just limiting this to one country at a time?
GomiBoy,
Let’s not forget that baseball’s fielders are named for the positions they play. The average US denizen may not be aware that cricket’s fielders are called just that: fielders. They’re posted to areas of the field and those areas have those names obviously made up after quite a few pints in the pub.
What’s the joke? What did you not understand?
Cricket relies enormously on the appeal of international competitions such as Test cricket and the considerably faster and more decisive limited over variety. Apart from the international scene the spectator support on a local level is fairly low.
Baseball, “world” series or not, and American football rely almost exclusively on the local US market, including TV, and I believe, get far more money compared to international cricket.
You mis-spelled “rounders”, which is considered acceptable entertainment for small children but not something we’d ever want to watch grown men play.
Exactly - baseball positions at least don’t sound like a drunken joke on the spectators. Actually, I do know why they’re called ‘silly’ - that position is most likely to be hit by the ball from either the bowler or the batsman during play. But it still galls me to have a professional sportsman paid a handsome salary a ‘silly’ anything, to say nothing of the tea and meal breaks during play. :rolleyes:
Malacandra - you people should just stop teaching the rest of the world your sports. You just end up losing everything when you do 
I don’t see why financial figures should be used to demonstrate popularity. All they show is that America and Europe are richer than India.
True, but it’s like the feeling you get when your kid beats you for the first time - you sniffle a little and remember when he was still wobbling about and the bat (ball, boots, club, whatever) was way too big for him. You should try it some time - you know, if you can actually come up with a sport that anyone else wants to play or watch, and if you can bear to lose at it one day.
What Gorillaman said. The OP explicitly says “popular” not “financially successful”.
Had you not used a rolleyes I would have assumed you were joking (perhaps you are, nonetheless). You are actually upset that people involved with a sport can have a sense of humour? Or what?
As to tea and meal breaks, cricket matches are loooooong. A fielding side can be in the field all day. What do you expect them to do? Why is your problem with it as a spectator, anyway? Many people like to watch every ball. It is to their advantage that there are breaks in play. When the heck else do you go for a pee, or organise your own lunch?
I am very much joking; didn’t realize that rolleyes turned it serious, so apologies for that. And sports players and spectators should definitely have a sense of humour, especially in cricket. 
Not upset in any way shape or form, and while I may have to turn in my US passport for this, where I live in Putney SW London is right next to a cricket pitch for Southampton County Cricket club; I like to go out there and watch the games with a picnic blanket and a eskie full of beer. Not understanding the game seems to be no detriment in occasionally enjoying watching it
I just think it should be turned into Brockian Ultra Cricket and just leave it at that. Would be much more exciting to watch if the losers were eaten or something
Never gonna happen. But as I tell all my English friends who ask why America doesn’t care about English football - first, it’s a girl’s game where I come from, and second you should be glad we don’t because it would just be us winning all the time if we took it at all seriously
It’s one measure, but a significant one.
To do a google research on crowds and money per annum - cricket - American Football - baseball - would take me well over an hour.
I’m not going to do it. Life’s too short.
However, I feel that despite large crowds in New Delhi, the Melbourne CG, Islamabad and wherever, cricket would still fall short of both baseball and American football on crowds/money (incl TV) combined.
I’m not a fanatic about this. If I’m wrong, then —.
We already did that with Basketball…
I think we can take the numerical popularity as a given.
The financial aspect of cricket is interesting, if one scales it by the proportion of GNP then the astronomical sums spent on baseball might dwindle to insignificance.
Personally, despite being British, I find cricket boring - although I find the spectators’ beer tent very interesting.
FDRE has a good idea, but no way I’m going to do the calculations! Without scaling for relative national wealth, I really do fail to see how you can claim that TV money is a useful or meaningful measure.
The amount of TV money depends on the number of people that the TV channels can attract and the advertisers will only splash their money on a large audience.
Even mediocre US baseball players (never mind American football players) get many millions of $ per annum. In comparison, cricketers at the international level get nothing like that amount of money.
The popularity of a sport depends on a number of factors that have to be combined to get the big picture. You can’t just look at one factor and say it’s the be all and end all when assessing its popularity. TV money has to be included.
Again, I’m with you. Neither of us is going to do a detailed research study to make an invincible case one way or another.
If we’re lucky, someone else will do it for us, gratis.