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Wed 24th Mar 2021 10:45 #21 / 58
Soccer/football is hugely popular in the USA. All sorts of fans here follow Euorpean leagues. More and more players in Europe are from the States - Dest. Though I am not a regular fan, the USMNT and USWNT are very exciting and beloved by many.
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Wed 24th Mar 2021 10:47 #22 / 58
Litotes wrote:
It's not a primarily European sport. It's the biggest sport in almost every American nation apart from the USA, including Canada, Mexico, most of Central America and all of South America - and also the biggest sport in most African nations and several Asian nations.
Canada? Really? Bigger than their national sport: hockey?
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Wed 24th Mar 2021 11:04 #23 / 58
Twobeard wrote:
Litotes wrote:
It's not a primarily European sport. It's the biggest sport in almost every American nation apart from the USA, including Canada, Mexico, most of Central America and all of South America - and also the biggest sport in most African nations and several Asian nations.
Canada? Really? Bigger than their national sport: hockey?
I made a search for "Biggest sport in Canada" just to make sure, and if you believe search results they confirmed it. No other sport has more registered players.
Ice Hockey wins the search for most popular one, though. With lacrosse in 2nd and football/soccer in 3rd. Plus it wins most watched with football/soccer in 2nd. So maybe hockey deserves to be called the biggest there. We have several Canadian players here on WarGear, if one if them chips in I'll defer to him :)
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Wed 24th Mar 2021 13:00 #24 / 58
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Litotes wrote:
Twobeard wrote:
Litotes wrote:
It's not a primarily European sport. It's the biggest sport in almost every American nation apart from the USA, including Canada, Mexico, most of Central America and all of South America - and also the biggest sport in most African nations and several Asian nations.
Canada? Really? Bigger than their national sport: hockey?
I made a search for "Biggest sport in Canada" just to make sure, and if you believe search results they confirmed it. No other sport has more registered players.
Ice Hockey wins the search for most popular one, though. With lacrosse in 2nd and football/soccer in 3rd. Plus it wins most watched with football/soccer in 2nd. So maybe hockey deserves to be called the biggest there. We have several Canadian players here on WarGear, if one if them chips in I'll defer to him :)
It was good to do other searches as registered players is definitely not the only factor in how popular a sport is. I would guess that fans and non professional play probably make up the biggest chunk of every sports popularity.
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Wed 24th Mar 2021 13:54 #25 / 58
I would guess that by the "registered players" metric soccer would also win in the USA. We even have a related phrase that has been very popular for many years: "soccer mom".
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Wed 24th Mar 2021 17:10 #26 / 58
asm wrote:
I would guess that by the "registered players" metric soccer would also win in the USA. We even have a related phrase that has been very popular for many years: "soccer mom".
I made a search for "biggest sports in the USA by number of players" and got a result that your version of football was the most popular. Not what I asked. Adding registered doesn't help. Maybe there's no answer for that one.
Most popular yields the same winner, not surprisingly since popular was what they answered for the first one.
TV ratings have in order: NFL, baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer/football in 5th. Then tennis as the most popular individual sport. Not many countries have an individual sport on top, so far I've only seen China (table tennis). and Indonesia (badminton).
For women soccer/football might be the biggest even in the USA, but women's football is a lot smaler than men's football in every other country in the world, at least in terms of popularity and spectators. Though the gap is shrinking. Maybe they'll eventually reach equality, who knows.
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Thu 25th Mar 2021 16:21 #27 / 58
The 'biggest' sport by number of players and also in terms of popularity in the US is the NFL, with Baseball being second.
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Thu 25th Mar 2021 21:24 #28 / 58
If you are going by pro sports players, that would be because they have the biggest rosters.
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 07:08 #29 / 58
How about by largest paychecks to individual athletes? That would be a pretty good indicator of something as nebulous as "popularity."
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/highest-paid-athletes/45/
Soccer doesn't even make the list.
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 07:35 #30 / 58
I'm a sports fan once a year, more or less, when there's a world cup or summer olympics. I skipped watching sports last year since the Olympics were postponed. Hoping they aren't postponed again in 2021.
If I didn't have so many other interests and commitments (including WGW), I would totally binge-watch soccer every night, but then I wouldn't do a lot of other things that keep me sane and happy. Here's what I'm looking forward to in the next few years:
2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Olympic_Games
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 08:45 #31 / 58
M57 wrote:
How about by largest paychecks to individual athletes? That would be a pretty good indicator of something as nebulous as "popularity."
Not true. That depends on salary cap. The NFL is way more popular than the MLB in the US, and the MLB has bigger contracts, I believe.
Edited Fri 26th Mar 08:45 [history]
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 10:15 #32 / 58
M57 wrote:
How about by largest paychecks to individual athletes? That would be a pretty good indicator of something as nebulous as "popularity."
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/highest-paid-athletes/45/
Soccer doesn't even make the list.
That's just US, isn't it? I found an international list with Roger Federer 1st, Cristiano Ronaldo 2nd, Lionel Messi 3rd, Neymar 4th and the best US athlete in 5th, a basketball player.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2893985-roger-federer-jumps-messi-ronaldo-tops-forbes-2020-highest-paid-athlete-list
Edited Fri 26th Mar 10:16 [history]
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 12:14 #33 / 58
Litotes wrote:
M57 wrote:
How about by largest paychecks to individual athletes? That would be a pretty good indicator of something as nebulous as "popularity."
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/highest-paid-athletes/45/
Soccer doesn't even make the list.
That's just US, isn't it? I found an international list with Roger Federer 1st, Cristiano Ronaldo 2nd, Lionel Messi 3rd, Neymar 4th and the best US athlete in 5th, a basketball player.
Right.. I saw that site as well. My point is that while soccer might be the most popular sport in the world, it's certainly not so in the US.
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 12:23 #34 / 58
DeVine wrote:
M57 wrote:
How about by largest paychecks to individual athletes? That would be a pretty good indicator of something as nebulous as "popularity."
Not true. That depends on salary cap. The NFL is way more popular than the MLB in the US, and the MLB has bigger contracts, I believe.
Yes, salary caps have some biases, so they addmittedly distort my subjectively proposed "popularity value," but every sport has them. They nonetheless speak volumes.
The base salaries of the 15 highest paid US soccer players are not very close to the salaries of the stars in other US sports.
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 15:45 #35 / 58
M57 wrote:
Litotes wrote:
M57 wrote:
How about by largest paychecks to individual athletes? That would be a pretty good indicator of something as nebulous as "popularity."
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/highest-paid-athletes/45/
Soccer doesn't even make the list.
That's just US, isn't it? I found an international list with Roger Federer 1st, Cristiano Ronaldo 2nd, Lionel Messi 3rd, Neymar 4th and the best US athlete in 5th, a basketball player.
Right.. I saw that site as well. My point is that while soccer might be the most popular sport in the world, it's certainly not so in the US.
I think we all agree on that :) Even us Europeans know well that you prefer the "big four", NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, in one order or the other.
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 16:55 #36 / 58
That was my point.
Edited Fri 26th Mar 16:56 [history]
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Fri 26th Mar 2021 18:29 #37 / 58
Damn it.. We're all making the same point!
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Sat 27th Mar 2021 04:52 #38 / 58
I was just adding to Chele's comment.
USA is probably the only country in the world where soccer/football is not at least top-3. At least the only one with some size. No idea what they prefer on Micronesia, Palau and Tuvalu.
As for the original comment about US sports, those are quite small over here apart from ice hockey, and that sport was ruined for me by a couple of boys at school who were both hockey players and evil bullies. So I don't follow any of them. I don't follow soccer/football either even though that is definitely the biggest sport in Norway. I do pay some attention to sports in general, not as much as when I was DeVine's age.
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Sat 27th Mar 2021 12:15 #39 / 58
Litotes wrote:
I was just adding to Chele's comment.
USA is probably the only country in the world where soccer/football is not at least top-3. At least the only one with some size. No idea what they prefer on Micronesia, Palau and Tuvalu.
As for the original comment about US sports, those are quite small over here apart from ice hockey, and that sport was ruined for me by a couple of boys at school who were both hockey players and evil bullies. So I don't follow any of them. I don't follow soccer/football either even though that is definitely the biggest sport in Norway. I do pay some attention to sports in general, not as much as when I was DeVine's age.
Yeah, I also find I'm following sports in general a bit less as I age, though maybe for different reasons than you Litotes. Nothing turns me off more than when one of my childhood 'sports heroes' turns out to be a major ass of a person (ie - Jimmy Connors, Jack Nicklaus). I reflect on how hard I rooted for both of them during their careers and now wish I hadn't spent the time or emotional attachment following them...and then I wonder about the current athletes and what the point is in watching them. Thankfully, Joe Montana has never failed his fans. :)
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Sun 28th Mar 2021 08:03 #40 / 58
Thingol wrote:
Litotes wrote:
I was just adding to Chele's comment.
USA is probably the only country in the world where soccer/football is not at least top-3. At least the only one with some size. No idea what they prefer on Micronesia, Palau and Tuvalu.
As for the original comment about US sports, those are quite small over here apart from ice hockey, and that sport was ruined for me by a couple of boys at school who were both hockey players and evil bullies. So I don't follow any of them. I don't follow soccer/football either even though that is definitely the biggest sport in Norway. I do pay some attention to sports in general, not as much as when I was DeVine's age.
Yeah, I also find I'm following sports in general a bit less as I age, though maybe for different reasons than you Litotes. Nothing turns me off more than when one of my childhood 'sports heroes' turns out to be a major ass of a person (ie - Jimmy Connors, Jack Nicklaus). I reflect on how hard I rooted for both of them during their careers and now wish I hadn't spent the time or emotional attachment following them...and then I wonder about the current athletes and what the point is in watching them. Thankfully, Joe Montana has never failed his fans. :)
Tennis is one of the sports I've followed so I don't need you to tell me what Connors have done, but what has disappointed you about Nicklaus? Not saying you're wrong, just that I don't know.
