Obviously Association Football is the most popular sport in the world (even people who hate it can admit that), but which sports complete the Top 5? By which I mean, sports with the most countries that play it to a high/decent standard.
1) Association Football 2) Rugby 3) Basketball 4) Baseball 5) Field Hockey
Rugby: popular in the British Isles, South Africa, Aus&NZ, the Pacific Nesias and France; mildly popular in Italy, Romania, Georgia and Argentina; growing as of late in Germany. Unheard of in most of Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Basketball: popular in the US, Lithuania, Greece and across ex-Yugoslavia; mildly popular in China, Argentina and Spain; third sport in France, Italy and Russia. Acknowledged in sub-Saharan Africa, Canada and Brazil. Unheard of in Germanic Europe and South Asia.
Wyatt Flores
What the fuck is association football? You mean soccer
Jayden Scott
Why are you so fucking autistic? I only added 'Association' for the sake of pissy Americans who'd whinge if I just put Football. Be happy that you're pandered to this much.
Real (royal) power rankings: 1)Messi (Barcelona) 2 Tony Brady (New England Patriots) ะท) Ronnie O'Sullivan (Snooker) 4- Steven Gerrard (Rangers FC Manager, does not slip) E) An Horse f) Christiano Ronaldo (Powerful Ass Raping Warlock, Juventus FC)
As much as I like a lot of these things, many are not sports. For example, in >pro wrestling >f1 >boxing >mma >track >chess >sumo >gymnastics >pool >skating >biathlon >sailing >skateboarding >e-sports are not sports. In order to be a sport, the activity must have a ball/puck/egg/whatever, have two competing sides in which one wins, and not use judges to score (i. e. scores are objective - a 3-0 score in soccer is unquestionable, while a 6.77 average judged score is subjective). Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Jacob Adams
also add the criterion that SOME kind of physical exertion is present, disqualifying pool, billiards, and snooker
partly true british diaspora took it to far flung parts of the world. but now it has a sizable hold in europe notably france and Italy and eastern europe is seeking greater participation the USA actually used to be an enthusiastic rugby nation coastally but was deposed by gridiron because there was little uptake centrally and rugby remained amateur while gridiron embraced professional pay packets and marketing
Is it about fans or athletes? I think you can only use a mixture of both. F1 for example has millions of fans around the globe, but no one actually is involved in racing, let alone F1 racing. Track and field for example has a shitton of athletes, but virtually no fans despite being the core sport of the olympic games. Only football can say that they're the worlds leader in both.