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Second most popular sport in the world

TM Riddle

TM Riddle

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Football is an undisputed number one it goes without saying.
Is cricket the second most popular? If we go by the population data it has to be.
The Subcontinent alone has people around 2 billion which is huge.
Whatcha think about that?
 
I think cricket is the second most popular sport in the world but definitely not the second most lucrative. I'd be surprised if it was.
 
I can't make out why football is #1.

It's kind of boring and one dimensional when you think about it.
 
I think it would be tennis worldwide.

Can't think of a global cricketing superstar that can match Federer or Nadal in popularity.
 
Dead Ball said:
I think it would be tennis worldwide.

Can't think of a global cricketing superstar that can match Federer or Nadal in popularity.
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Tennis is an individual game. Besides I don't think Nadal or Federer can rouse the same passion among fans as the national sides in games like Football and Cricket do.
And Tennis is also a pretty expensive for an average Joe to play on a regular basis.
 
Cricket. We all know the populations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are huge. All 3 are in the top 10 for most populated countries in the world. And think of all of the Asians living in countries such as England, America, Canada and other countries. And there's fans of every other cricket country as well. Majority of other sports, major teams aren't highly populated countries. I'm sure if Pakistan, India and Bangladesh had proper rugby/hockey/basketball etc teams that sport would be a lot more popular too.
 
Varun said:
I can't make out why football is #1.

It's kind of boring and one dimensional when you think about it.
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It’s short game and very easy to understand which is the main reason why its number 1.

When you get into it, football is more tactical then it looks tbh.
 
Varun said:
I can't make out why football is #1.

It's kind of boring and one dimensional when you think about it.
Click to expand...

Clearly you don't know much about it then

Hardly one dimensional. And very very tactical. And certainly needs more athleticism and fitness

Cricket - compared to other major sports such as football, NFL, basketball - is bit of a ***** sport let's be honest
 
TM Riddle said:
Tennis is an individual game. Besides I don't think Nadal or Federer can rouse the same passion among fans as the national sides in games like Football and Cricket do.
And Tennis is also a pretty expensive for an average Joe to play on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

Cricket is very expensive then too

Probably cheapest sport is football
 
TM Riddle said:
Football is an undisputed number one it goes without saying.
Is cricket the second most popular? If we go by the population data it has to be.
The Subcontinent alone has people around 2 billion which is huge.
Whatcha think about that?
Click to expand...


In terms of number of people following cricket is definitely the second most popular sport and I'd bet not as far behind football as most would think.

However in terms of seeing the reach and popularity of a sport I prefer looking at the spread of the sport across different regions and countries. In that respect I think cricket is far far behind. It's the major sport of barely 3-4 countries. I said it in another thread aswell that I'm always surprised that most British or Aussies I meet barely know about cricket too

And in South America and most of Africa people are unlikely to know about its existence let alone have some basic understanding of what it is. Even in North America (esp Canada) the average person might have heard about the sport due to the desi populations there but that's as far as tbeir knowledge would go
 
Cricket is only popular on paper. Statistics wise. However as always statistics are misleading. Go ask a random non-south Asian person outside of UK and Australia what cricket is and they will have no clue.

An average of Earthling has no clue what cricket is and how it is played.
 
Cricket is second most watched sport but only because of Asia.

In terms of global viewing and playing, it has to be tennis.

In the UK there are so many sports to choose from all with excellent facilities. At present I'm playing a lot of squash and soon will try my hand at fencing.
 
Cricket is not popular outside of desi countries. Heck even countries like England and Australia that play cricket, the sport is hardly popular amongst the general populace.
 
Syed1 said:
Cricket is not popular outside of desi countries. Heck even countries like England and Australia that play cricket, the sport is hardly popular amongst the general populace.
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This is absolutely true. I think people who live in the subcontinent sometimes get a massive shock when they travel outside and find that cricketers are barely known. Why do you think that it's only played by a handful of countries, mostly former British colonies.
 
Slog said:
Clearly you don't know much about it then

Hardly one dimensional. And very very tactical. And certainly needs more athleticism and fitness

Cricket - compared to other major sports such as football, NFL, basketball - is bit of a ***** sport let's be honest
Click to expand...

NFL is a major Sport? Which countries in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe play it?
 
hafeezrocks said:
NFL is a major Sport? Which countries in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe play it?
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NFL is the American equivalent of cricket in the SC. Americans assume because they play it, the rest of the world must share their fascination. If anything it has an even smaller global reach than cricket.
 
CricketCartoons said:
If quality of fans matters, then cricket is number one, followed by football.
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Quality? How come? Surely you meant quantity.

The amount of people and nations following football is far more diverse than cricket.
 
Sirris said:
Cricket is only popular on paper. Statistics wise. However as always statistics are misleading. Go ask a random non-south Asian person outside of UK and Australia what cricket is and they will have no clue.

An average of Earthling has no clue what cricket is and how it is played.
Click to expand...

A lot of people in America now know what cricket is but they think of it as an Indian sport.
 
Saying cricket is number two may be factually true when considering populations of playing nations but when you actually go around the world at country levels and ask then cricket is no where near second. Cricket just has the luxury of having two teams with very high populations (India, Pakistan).
 
Varun said:
I can't make out why football is #1.

It's kind of boring and one dimensional when you think about it.
Click to expand...

For any sport to be popular it needs to be attractive to kids. Among all competitive sports, this is a simple game with simple set of rules and cheap and one can practise on ones own. Because the playing or watching time is less than two hours makes it an acceptable with parents too. Then you have the advertisers and media, who have glamorised watching football even at club levels.

Coming back to OP question: Cricket has to be the next most popular sport.
 
Tennis is the right answer, seriously how tough it is.
Played by nearly all countries and also fan following from most of the countries. Four slams in 3 different continent and masters ,atp 500 ,atp 250 spread all over the world because of fan following.
 
Formula One is very popular with races taking place all over the globe.

Basketball has quite a following. Lebron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry are amongst the richest and popular athletes in world.

Tennis has a lot fans around the world (including me). Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic are huge global stars.

Cricket gets a lot eyeballs (2nd only to football). This is because South Asia is one of the most populated region in the world.
 
Varun said:
I can't make out why football is #1.

It's kind of boring and one dimensional when you think about it.
Click to expand...

It gets more interesting the more you think about it.

I think basketball is probably #2 in terms in international participation if not lucre.
 
Friend786 said:
Formula One is very popular with races taking place all over the globe.
Click to expand...

Formula 1 is too niche, and is basically more a game of technology versus a sport. Races taking place all over the world is akin to cricket matches being held everywhere as well, yet neither qualify to be the 2nd most popular sport.
 
TM Riddle said:
Football is an undisputed number one it goes without saying.
Is cricket the second most popular? If we go by the population data it has to be.
The Subcontinent alone has people around 2 billion which is huge.
Whatcha think about that?
Click to expand...
Define 'popular'.
Do you mean in terms of number of fans and supporters?
Or tv viewers?
Or those who have played the sport, even if only at school, at some point during their lives?
Or the number of countries where it is a major sport (say in the top 5 of that country)?
Or the geographical spread?
Or the revenue generated?
Or ....

Depending upon which definition you choose, you will get a different answer. Hence a meaningless question.
 
Varun said:
I can't make out why football is #1.

It's kind of boring and one dimensional when you think about it.
Click to expand...

If you played a decent amount of football growing up, you would not be saying this. Nothing else in sports beats the passion of chasing a ball, wanting to beat the opposing player running with you, and getting off a shot at the goal.
 
Yossarian said:
Define 'popular'.
Do you mean in terms of number of fans and supporters? Football
Or tv viewers? Football
Or those who have played the sport, even if only at school, at some point during their lives? Football
Or the number of countries where it is a major sport (say in the top 5 of that country)? Most likely football
Or the geographical spread? Def football
Or the revenue generated? Not sure
Or ....

Depending upon which definition you choose, you will get a different answer. Hence a meaningless question.
Click to expand...

Sure football is the answer to most of these questions
 
Athletics (sprint races) and chess because all 190+ countries participate in them and most people must have played a game of chess or run 100m in school/college at least once in their lifetimes. FIDE did a study a few years back where they concluded that 3.5 billion people have played at least 1 game of chess in their lives and 600 million people are active players in previous 12 months period. I am guessing athletics will have even more impressive numbers.

Can't say the same for sports like golf, tennis, swimming, basketball, boxing, wrestling, hockey, F1 etc because not only is it limited to certain geographic pockets but also exclusive. In Chennai which is a metro, its easy to play football/cricket but you'll need to be part of some club/society/University to get access to some of the other games mentioned in this thread, F1/tennis/golf is well beyond the reach of most middle/lower class people.
 
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Swashbuckler said:
Athletics (sprint races) and chess because all 190+ countries participate in them and most people must have played a game of chess or run 100m in school/college at least once in their lifetimes. FIDE did a study a few years back where they concluded that 3.5 billion people have played at least 1 game of chess in their lives and 600 million people are active players in previous 12 months period. I am guessing athletics will have even more impressive numbers.

Can't say the same for sports like golf, tennis, swimming, basketball, boxing, wrestling, hockey, F1 etc because not only is it limited to certain geographic pockets but also exclusive. In Chennai which is a metro, its easy to play football/cricket but you'll need to be part of some club/society/University to get access to some of the other games mentioned in this thread, F1/tennis/golf is well beyond the reach of most middle/lower class people.
Click to expand...

Lol. This is now desperate. Just because people have played ludo and chess once in their childhood doesn't mean it is popular, and people pay to watch a match of ludo or chess being played.
 
CricketCartoons said:
Lol. This is now desperate. Just because people have played ludo and chess once in their childhood doesn't mean it is popular, and people pay to watch a match of ludo or chess being played.
Click to expand...

Ludo is a game of chance, Chess/Go are games of high skill so don't expose your ignorance once again.

More people will be familiar with chess but if you tell 'cricket' to a Brazilian or Algerian he/she will think of an insect. And more people will be familiar with Kasparov compared to Bradman.
 
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Swashbuckler said:
Ludo is a game of chance, Chess/Go are games of high skill so don't expose your ignorance once again.

More people will be familiar with chess but if you tell 'cricket' to a Brazilian or Algerian he/she will think of an insect.
Click to expand...

Who is comparing chess and ludo? Don't assume anything and expose your lack of comprehension skills. Both are indoor games and desi parents use them to keep the kids at home during summer afternoons.

Familiarity doesn't mean popularity. Again logic fail.

Why a brazilian views should mean more than a desi guy? Only some desis with inferiority give more value to the opinions, likes and dislikes of non desis.

Cricket is the most popular sport in humanity. Of course you can disagree if you dont consider all humans equal.
 
CricketCartoons said:
Who is comparing chess and ludo? Don't assume anything and expose your lack of comprehension skills. Both are indoor games and desi parents use them to keep the kids at home during summer afternoons.

Familiarity doesn't mean popularity. Again logic fail.

Why a brazilian views should mean more than a desi guy? Only some desis with inferiority give more value to the opinions, likes and dislikes of non desis.

Cricket is the most popular sport in humanity. Of course you can disagree if you dont consider all humans equal.
Click to expand...

Cricket is limited to 10-12 countries, Chess is popular in at least 10 times that many countries, what's with your desi this, desi that? For a game to be called popular it must have wide reach and cricket miserably fails on that front, it is similar to field hockey/rugby/baseball in that regard with the added advantage that desis breed like rabbits. I am done with your trolling, so don't bother replying.
 
Swashbuckler said:
Cricket is limited to 10-12 countries, Chess is popular in at least 10 times that many countries, what's with your desi this, desi that? For a game to be called popular it must have wide reach and cricket miserably fails on that front, it is similar to field hockey/rugby/baseball in that regard with the added advantage that desis breed like rabbits. I am done with your trolling, so don't bother replying.
Click to expand...

How can you give equal weight to countries? Is Sri Lanka the same as USA?

So I see you don't give equal value to humans (wow. desis breed like rabbits therefore they are less humans?). Nothing else to see. Go and play ludo and chess. Nothing more to say to you.
 
Football
Tennis
F1
Basketball
Badminton
TT
Golf
Hockey
Volleyball

Cricket will not be even in top 10 if we consider how many countries/ races play it worldwide.
 
AamchiMumbaikar said:
Football
Tennis
F1
Basketball
Badminton
TT
Golf
Hockey
Volleyball

Cricket will not be even in top 10 if we consider how many countries/ races play it worldwide.
Click to expand...

No race or country is superior than any other race or country. All humans are equal. Each human vote should count the same irrespective of nationality or race.
 
Swashbuckler said:
Cricket is limited to 10-12 countries, Chess is popular in at least 10 times that many countries, what's with your desi this, desi that? For a game to be called popular it must have wide reach and cricket miserably fails on that front, it is similar to field hockey/rugby/baseball in that regard with the added advantage that desis breed like rabbits. I am done with your trolling, so don't bother replying.
Click to expand...

Don't waste your time explaining too much to him. Usually one or two posts per thread is enough to entertain him.

You are right that to measure game's popularity you actually have to take views/interests from other countries into consideration not the ones where it is super popular.
 
Formula -1 if you consider it a sport, or Tennis either one.

Basketball might be popular in terms of playiybut defn viewing it has to be F-1 or Tennis, and UFC has gained a lot to be in top-5 now.
 
JaDed said:
Formula -1 if you consider it a sport, or Tennis either one.

Basketball might be popular in terms of playiybut defn viewing it has to be F-1 or Tennis, and UFC has gained a lot to be in top-5 now.
Click to expand...

Ever been to watch a F-1 race? It has to be one of the most sports event ever.... you see the cars go by you in a flash and then you wait a minute and a half for them to come back again. Unless you are seated somewhere where there is a screen nearby you can barely tell who gained or lost positions during a lap.


F-1 should only be viewed on tv.
 
Syed1 said:
Ever been to watch a F-1 race? It has to be one of the most sports event ever.... you see the cars go by you in a flash and then you wait a minute and a half for them to come back again. Unless you are seated somewhere where there is a screen nearby you can barely tell who gained or lost positions during a lap.


F-1 should only be viewed on tv.
Click to expand...

Have you been to one? The vibrations are remarkable.
I agree on position and lap issue but it could be fun, I used to watch bits and pieces on TV as well but found it not as interesting.
 
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