Pinpointing the Most Popular Sports in the World is not that easy
What are the world’s most popular sports? A question that is often asked has and possibly never been ultimately determined. The problem with listing the top sports is coming up with a clear
defining variable for the list. By popular, do you mean most watched, most played, or most talked about? These are some of the factors which could define what the most popular sports are.
A quick search online would nearly always label football, or soccer, as the top sport of the world, regardless of the criteria. However, with regards to the rest of the list, each standard differs with
which sports should be labeled “popular.” Beginning with the most popular sports based on viewership, football is rightly at the top of the list. The FIFA World Cup is held every four years and attracts over 30 billion fans worldwide via television alone.
In general, though, the number of estimated football fans worldwide would be around 3.5 billion people.
The number one position is expected; however and surprisingly enough, cricket takes second place. Cricket’s estimated global fan base is 2.5 billion people, with the sport proving to be popular in the UK, Australia, and a few Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Field hockey comes in third with approximately 2 billion fans, which also links to its popularity in Asian countries. Tennis and volleyball make up the fourth and fifth positions, with both also attracting many viewers in Asia and Europe. American sports such as baseball, basketball, and American football are mainly popular in the US, which is why they are much lower on this list.
Interestingly enough, the very same five sports (in the same order) make up the top five most played sports around the world. Clearly the high number of people who watch football, cricket, hockey, tennis and volleyball, also seem to play it.
However, one unique way of measuring the same factor is by looking at how many national federations there are for each sport. The more national federations a sport has generated, the more it is played.
Now this is one list which football does not come in first, as that honor is given to volleyball. There are currently 218 national federations linked to volleyball, which beats football’s 205 federations. On this basis, volleyball is more popular than football. Basketball has the next highest number with 212, while athletics (track and field) incorporates 211 federations.
As mentioned, football had the fourth highest number, as tennis came after with 203 national federations. Although this is clearly an unreliable way of measuring a popularity of a sport, since the number of federations is not indicative of a sport’s popularity. It is still an interesting aspect to look at.
A third method of looking at popular sports is by checking out the internet – the more Wikipedia visits to a certain sport there are, the more popular it is. This list only noted the English Wikipedia site, meaning it reflects the popularity of the sports in the English speaking world only. Nevertheless, the top five still make for an interesting reading. The Wikipedia page for football or soccer is unsurprisingly number one, with daily hits of 14766 to the “association football” page in 2010.
Basketball and American football came second and third, as USA do, after all, make a large proportion of the English speaking world.
However, cricket managed to edge out baseball for fourth place. They’re both considered a bat and ball game, but their levels of popularity in the UK and USA couldn’t be more different. Cricket is popular in a few other English speaking countries, like South Africa and Australia, which is what may have put cricket ahead of baseball, which is really only popular in USA. Overall, the question of the most popular sports in the world is one that’ll continue to stir debates forever with different sports proving to be popular and unpopular in different parts of the world.
For now however, it seems the five most popular sports worldwide are football, cricket, field hockey, tennis, and volleyball.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely the list will stay as such overtime, especially with some sports such as rugby gaining recognition around the world, while a few other sports are losing popularity. Only time will tell, and when that happens, even more grueling debates will unfold.
Delphi:
September 1st, 2011 at 12:14 am
Thanks for the article, in my opinion you should emphasize that “it seems” the 5 more popular sports are etc etc… Also, the approach to the “research” could be improved though
Ingrid Beske:
September 1st, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Just what theme are you using, can it be custom? If it is who made it? Are you able to provide me his/her contact information? Thnx!
Daniel:
September 1st, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Soccer is probably the most popular one internationally if you ask me.
Jesse:
September 5th, 2011 at 1:31 am
What the he** is field hockey?
Shawn:
September 5th, 2011 at 1:34 am
How did you forget American football? That has to rank higher than volleyball IMO
Aaron:
September 7th, 2011 at 4:07 am
I am wondering what the most popular team sport by number of countries that participate is. Not by actual people who take part in it. Football would be number 1, but then cricket/hockey/basketball could all be up for second place. Rugby, volleyball and softball would then come somewhere below. That’s my guess anyway. Anyone know where an actual list of number of countries that play or to make it official, number of countries that compete in a world cup qualifier for that sport would be?
India Tours from Canada:
September 13th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Football, cricket are the most popular sports
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix:
September 16th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
very informative article all the information very true like that the cricket is known as some english countries.but this game is very popular in the most of the world countries.in the america they are not interested in cricket because they like base ball and wrestling that’s why the cricket are not popular in the america….
Kia Odum:
October 3rd, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Your site doesn’t render appropriately on my blackberry – you might want to try and fix that
j-smooth:
October 24th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
football is the best sport.then boxing.soccer is not a mans sport
kausani:
January 2nd, 2012 at 10:07 am
English is the unifying language in India – hence the popularity of cricket on the internet.
squash niagara falls:
January 27th, 2012 at 8:24 pm
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chris:
February 5th, 2012 at 9:16 pm
actually baseball is popular in Latin America, e.g. Cuba, and also in Japan, and Taiwan.
Britni Epperly:
February 7th, 2012 at 2:14 pm
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