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Gaf, the worlds top ten most popular sports?

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O

Omega Kirby

Member
So basically had a discussion with a friend about which sports are the most watched throughout the world. Obviously we had a difference list. I googled it and many sites not surprisingly also have different orders.

So this is what i've gathered as the most popular sports/most watched. Football/soccer is always and will always be number one, but after that it's just different for everyone.
Some say volleyball is the 5th , others say baseball is in the top ten and what not



#1. Football/Soccer

#2. Basketball

#3. Cricket

#4. Tennis

#5. Athletics

#6. Rugby

#7. Formula 1:

#8. Boxing

#9. Ice Hockey/

#10: Volleyball


It's just my opinion. I really have no idea, whats the correct order. What do you think?
 
F

FZZ

Banned
Think Cricket is #2

Basketball might be below Rugby too, but has the potential to become #1honestly

Hockey is far more popular than you're giving credit, baseball not even on the list

Cmon
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
1. Football

2. League of Legends

3. Can't say. Either basketball or CS:GO
 
S

sflufan

Banned
Cricket is probably at #4 or #5, certainly no higher than that.

#1 is soccer by an overwhelming margin
#2 is basketball

Everything else is so inconsequential as to be not worth considering.
 
H

His Majesty

Banned
Might want to include Table Tennis, isn't it the most popular sport in China?

In my country (Belgium) I think it is:

1. Football
2. Cycling
3. Tennis
 
N

NoblesseOblige

Banned
1.Association Football (Soccer)
2.Basketball
3.Tennis
4.Cricket
5.Baseball
6.Formula 1
7.American Football
8.Athletics
9.Golf
10.Ice Hockey

Method:

How is the list calculated?
I first had the idea to create this list when looking around the web for any data on the world's biggest sports. Lots of websites offered lists of the biggest global sports but these were mostly either not based on data or based on very ropey data. For example field hockey is often referenced in the top 5 largest global sports based on fans (because of India), despite India's fans not being able to support a full professional league, whilst the world's best field hockey players earn less in a year than some other sportsmen do in a day. So much for 2 billion fans! Other lists were very American focused or based for example on total attendances (baseball wins because of the large number of games!). Similarly there are all sorts of cliches on the web about table tennis being the greatest interest sport in China or Sumo in Japan (neither of which is true these days, think football, basketball and baseball)

I therefore set about using my professional experience in sports, statistics and research (I worked in the sports measurement dept of a global research company and am an Oxford University Economics graduate) to create a data-based list of the biggest global sports. For a year at a time and daily during that year, the most visited sports news websites were tracked from 16 of the world's biggest countries, accounting for more than 60% of the world's population and wealth, for sports covered in main news sections and prominence of headlines. From this, lists of the top sports per country over the year were produced.

The global sports list uses country size (50/50 weight for population and wealth) to weight the data, so for example prominence in China or the US is more important than in Australia in relation to the size of the country to come up with a definitive list. There are still flaws in the calculation, as more countries are added and sports tracked over a 4 year cycle, but I am confident that this is the most accurate list of the biggest global sports on the internet. I hope you enjoy!!
Click to expand...

http://www.biggestglobalsports.com/
 
W

wachie

Member
sflufan said:
Cricket is probably at #4 or #5, certainly no higher than that.

#1 is soccer by an overwhelming margin
#2 is basketball

Everything else is so inconsequential as to be not worth considering.
Click to expand...
Yeah, no.

Cricket is #2 if not #1. More than 1.1 billion just from one country alone.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Most watched and most popular are different, because you also have to factor in players from the Olympic/World levels right down to kids on the street. Popular is a more generic aggregate of all people involved in a sport. Watched just implies spectators.
 
S

spyder_ur

Member
TheXbox said:
Golf's gotta be on there, right?

Either way, 1 and 2 are soccer and cricket, nothing else comes close.
Click to expand...

Golf is a heavily socially stratified sport.

If this is just most watched, I do find it surprising that American football isn't on there. I would have guessed just from it's dominating position in American culture and growing a bit overseas it would have been included.
 
N

Nafai1123

Banned
Leunam said:
Superbowl and World Cup for instance. Lots of people tune in but they aren't really fans otherwise.
Click to expand...

True but those are high profile events. I would expect the average for regular season viewership to be pretty indicative of a sports popularity.
 
T

Tallshortman

Member
wachie said:
Yeah, no.

Cricket is #2 if not #1. More than 1.1 billion just from one country alone.
Click to expand...

NBA is very popular in China which has a larger population than India. Also cricket is no where close to soccer which is also the most popular sport among the 1.3 billion in China.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
What do you mean by popular? Most money/sponsorship, or purely number of viewers?
 
K

Kotetsu534

Member
Depends what you mean, but badminton needs to be in the discussion. Absolutely massive in the most populous parts of the world (China, Indonesia, Phillippines, Malaysia, Japan etc.). Pretty big in Singapore and India as I understand it, too.
 
W

wachie

Member
Tallshortman said:
NBA is very popular in China which has a larger population than India. Also cricket is no where close to soccer which is also the most popular sport among the 1.3 billion in China.
Click to expand...
Your assumption is that 1.3B in China follow NBA, however the 1.1B+ in India definitely follow Cricket. Plus add up other 300-400 million from Pakistan, Bangladesh, UK, Australia, South Africa, Middle-east and it should easily outweigh NBA.
 
N

Nafai1123

Banned
Krejlooc said:
I guess if we count participation as a metric of popularity, and count cards as sports, there might be some card games which are played on massively popular that aren't widely watched. Maybe?
Click to expand...

Yeah, if we're basing a sports popularity off participation then I would expect something like table tennis to be pretty high up there too.

Is beer pong a sport? :p
 
M

mavo

Banned
Well here in mexico is obviously football, then followed by American Football and Boxing (obviously people rarely play these, but they rarely play anything else apart from football).

And honorary mention to baseball, which is the number one sport in the northwest.
 
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