What is the most popular sport in the world?

Helmet, pads, etc. These are very expensive, and football teams have a ton of people, compared to other sports.
Football doesn't require helmet & pads. No more than soccer requires shin guards, cleats, and goalie gloves.

Both football (american) and soccer only have 11 on the field (per team), but can be played with less or more.
 


Soccer is #5, after football, baseball, basketball and hockey.

Guess it depends on what's being measured. Are we talking popularity of the professional level? That's what my post was. If so, I'd put soccer even lower than #5. NASCAR, NHRA, golf, tennis, etc... I'd probably put soccer around #10 here in the US, give or take.
 



Interesting. Wonder what the criteria for the ranking actually was. I really question soccer being above boxing, MMA, racing, etc... Frankly, I wonder if hockey is still at #4. In that respect, I think hockey, NASCAR and soccer have something in common. They don't have as many fans here in the US as the "big" sports, but the ones they do have are usually pretty hard core fans.
 
Interesting. Wonder what the criteria for the ranking actually was. I really question soccer being above boxing, MMA, racing, etc... Frankly, I wonder if hockey is still at #4. In that respect, I think hockey, NASCAR and soccer have something in common. They don't have as many fans here in the US as the "big" sports, but the ones they do have are usually pretty hard core fans.
It’s probably regional, NASCAR isn’t big here, but I know many people with Red Bull season tickets, DH and ds are going to some big soccer game in July, Madrid vs. someone. Two girls from our graduating class are playing college hockey next year. Almost the entire varsity soccer teams at our HS play club too.
 
These lists always intrigue me. Not from what is and is not most popular but from a standpoint of we sometimes being ugly Americans think the world revolves around us and our preferences should be the world's preferences given the fact that we are roughly 330 million in population vs the something like 7 billion people in the global population. Boxing and MMA while being popular in certain segments cannot come anywhere near the popularity of soccer. Now the more interesting lists come in when you start looking at the money. Both from a standpoint of the individual participants and what they are paid and what individual franchises are worth. I have not studied the lists in several years but typically the highest paid individual in sports for many years was a Formula 1 driver. While there were American players like Tiger Woods at his peak and Michael Jordon, and Lebron James the rest were rather widespread globally. When it came to value of franchises what I always found interesting was that all 32 NFL teams were ranked in the top 50. The rest were Football clubs in England (Manchester U), the Yankee's and a couple others, the real money was obviously in American Football. And the most interesting fact about that was that they were ranked that high because in many instances they had not paid for their stadiums but in fact Tax Payers had. I mean several years ago as a Texan fan I was shocked to see that the Houston Texans were ranked like number 6 or 7 in franchise value and looked into it. The Texan's play in a stadium built and paid for by Harris County, get the naming rights proceeds for the NRG Stadium, that has four major gates at the corners of the stadiums that have naming rights that Budweiser, Coca Cola, Gallery Furniture and someone else pay to the Texans, and control all the rights to stadium vendors that they sell to Papa Johns pizza, Pappas Bar-b-que and others. The only thing the county gets to pay off the bonds floated to build the stadium are the parking revenues. Now while these are no doubt large, any extra money generated could no doubtbe put to good use to improve, say drainage in the county? God knows they need that given Harvey and all the other water we get in the area. But hey Football is no doubt more important to Houston than keeping half the city from floating down the bayou to the Gulf. Man has to have his priorities after all.
 
Meh. That article is totally wrong.
1. NFL football
2. College football
3. High school football
4. Middle school football
5. pee wee football.
6. Corn hole at a tail gate attending one of the above.
7. College recruiting season.
8. NFL Pre season.
9. College football spring practice.
10. The NFL draft.

hahaha. I agree, with one exception. Middle School football and pee-wee football around here are grouped in to one "Youth football", so my list would look like this:

1. NFL football
2. College football
3. High school football
4. Youth Football
5. Lacrosse (any age/gender)
6. Corn hole at a tail gate attending one of the above.
7. College recruiting season.
8. NFL Pre season.
9. College football spring practice.
10. The NFL draft.

At least in my ideal world! :rotfl2:
 
Football doesn't require helmet & pads. No more than soccer requires shin guards, cleats, and goalie gloves.

Both football (american) and soccer only have 11 on the field (per team), but can be played with less or more.
What? American Football does in fact, require pads. Otherwise, you are playing touch or flag football, and not the sport played by Pop Warner kids, or by young men in stadiums on campuses and in the NFL. Modern football teams rarely have players playing both ways. Even the smallest high school teams have rosters in the 30+ range. College teams can have in excess of 100 players. NFL teams have 53 players plus scout team players. It costs anywhere between $500-1000 per player just in individual equipment (surely the NFL is higher).

When our high school started football, they had to raise $40,000 for helmets/pads. That's a specific cost I definitely remember.

Soccer rosters typically have 15-20 players that play the majority of minutes. Pro rosters typically have no more than 30 players total. I have 3 kids playing soccer, and not one of their teams has a pair of goalie gloves. Even if they did, they are $10-20. Shin guards are $5 at Wal-Mart. It's not remotely the same. You could outfit a soccer league for less than the cost of one football player.

Can we agree to disagree? If you want to research it, google has plenty of articles on the topic. Soccer for some. Football for others. :-)
 
In the world, it's soccer without question. In the US, soccer is quite far down the list (I'm not a fan at all, so no complaints from me). Here, football is king, followed by basketball...which I'd argue has taken over the 2nd place spot from baseball.

For sure agreed. MLB is having major, major issues this year with TV viewership and stadium tickets.

We’re Yankee fans and tickets are insanely expensive, and still most games have exceptionally high attendance. But I’ve seen plenty of games on TV in other stadiums with rows and rows of empty seats.
 
Here is a Table of Top 10 Popular Sports
rankSportEstimated FansRegional Popularity
1.Soccer / Association Football3.5 BillionEurope, Africa, Asia, America
2.Cricket2.5 BillionAsia, Australia, UK
3.Basketball2.2 BillionUS, Canada, China, and the Philippines
4.Field Hockey2 BillionEurope, Africa, Asia, Australia
5.Tennis1 BillionEurope, Americas, and Asia
6.Volleyball900 MillionAsia, Europe, Americas, and Australia
7.Table Tennis850 MillionAsia, Europe, Africa and Americas
8.Baseball500 MillionUS, Japan, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic
9American Football Rugby410 Million 410 MillionUSA mainly France, England, New Zealand, South Africa
10Golf390 MillionEurope, Asia, America, Canada
https://sportsshow.net/top-10-most-popular-sports-in-the-world
Look out soccer...curling is coming for you! :cheer2:
https://www.tmj4.com/sports/olympics/report-curling-is-the-olympics-most-popular-sport
 
Football (AKA soccer in the US) is hugely popular in most parts of the world - and especially Europe. People take it so, so seriously and are unreservedly loyal to and supportive of their home teams. It actually reminds me of baseball in the U.K.!
 
What? American Football does in fact, require pads. Otherwise, you are playing touch or flag football, and not the sport played by Pop Warner kids, or by young men in stadiums on campuses and in the NFL. Modern football teams rarely have players playing both ways. Even the smallest high school teams have rosters in the 30+ range. College teams can have in excess of 100 players. NFL teams have 53 players plus scout team players. It costs anywhere between $500-1000 per player just in individual equipment (surely the NFL is higher).

When our high school started football, they had to raise $40,000 for helmets/pads. That's a specific cost I definitely remember.

Soccer rosters typically have 15-20 players that play the majority of minutes. Pro rosters typically have no more than 30 players total. I have 3 kids playing soccer, and not one of their teams has a pair of goalie gloves. Even if they did, they are $10-20. Shin guards are $5 at Wal-Mart. It's not remotely the same. You could outfit a soccer league for less than the cost of one football player.

Can we agree to disagree? If you want to research it, google has plenty of articles on the topic. Soccer for some. Football for others. :-)
Here's the thing... you're talking organized sports/teams. I'm talking sandlot stuff. Multiple families play Football every Thanksgiving while waiting on the Turkey to cook. You think they're worried about helmets and pads? It can be as small as 2v2. I remember playing "smear the queer" (sorry, that was the name of it) when I was growing up. Whoever had the ball you tried to tackle. There were no pads, and yes, you tackled them to the ground. I remember playing 1v1 baseball with lots of "ghost runners".

My point is if kids want to play the games, they'll find some way to do it. It doesn't have to be organized on a regulation field, and you don't need hundreds of dollars per player or even regulation equipment.
 
I am a big football fan and should say that it is emotionally very exciting to be part of a game. I watch all matches of my favorite team with my friends and we are all very passionate about this sport. We even bet from time to time just to guess who will be the next winner
 

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