In the world, there are a variety of sports which are played, but some sports are such whose hangover audience will always have. The sports are played by men and women, boys and girls, of all colors, races, religions, ethnicities, and cultures with no measure other than how fast, how strong, how smooth, how skilled they are. Sports are something that we share together globally, not individually, and they ultimately bring us together.
Below is a list of the 10 most popular sports in the world, judged by how large their audience is.
10. Golf
Golf is considered a game for the riches. Golf has an estimated global following of 450 Million people, and its primary influence is in Western Europe, East Asia, and North America. Golf is played by use of different clubs to hit a ball, over a determined course, using the fewest possible amount of strokes. The modern sport was first played in Scotland from where it spread to the UK and to the rest of the world. Golf is a major sport in some very developed countries like US, UK, Japan, Korea and even in South Africa. Just like tennis Golf has its four majors and the unique Ryder cup where US golfers go head to head with European as a team.
9. American Football
American football ties with basketball in terms of popularity. The games, basketball, and American football have their origin from the USA and are very much common in the region than in any other continent. Being a sport that is mostly played in the US, the fan base of American Football is concentrated in the US. It is highly popular in the United States. The sport enjoys an impressive presence on social media thanks to its US fan base. The teams and athletes of American Football are often among the top trends in social media. American Football does not have professional leagues in the majority of the countries. The only renowned league of the sport is in the US. It is known as the NFL.
8. Rugby
Rugby is widely played in France and has a strong tradition in the people of Basque, Occitan, and Catalan areas along the border regions between Spain and France. The game is very popular in South Africa, having been introduced by English-speaking settlers in the 19th century. British colonists also brought the game with them to Australia and New Zealand, where the game is widely played. It has spread thence to much of Polynesia, having particularly strong followings in Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. The sport is moderately popular on the Internet and enjoys a high level of searches during the rugby world cup, especially in the participating nations.
7. Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players who take turns batting and fielding. The offense attempts to score more runs than its opponent by hitting a ball thrown by the pitcher with a bat and moving counter-clockwise around a series of four bases: first, second, third and home plate. A run is scored when the runner advances around the bases and returns to home plate. Baseball enjoys a huge number of fans in the US, Canada, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. The number of amateur players of Baseball in the world is limited to the US, Japan, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. These countries have a fairly good number of amateur players in the sport.
6. Table Tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net. Except for the initial serve, players must allow a ball played towards them only one bounce on their side of the table and must return it so that it bounces on the opposite side. The fans of table tennis are scattered around the world. With millions of hobbyists, amateur players, and professional players table tennis has a strong fan base of more than 900 million fans around the world.
5. Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team’s court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summer Olympic Games since 1964. Volleyball enjoys a reasonable number of fans in almost all countries of the world. This is one area where volleyball out numbers every other sport on the list. Volleyball has the highest number of national federations among all sports. Professional and semi-professional leagues are regularly organized by these federations.
4. Tennis
Tennis is a sport that people usually play individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent’s court. The object of the game is to play the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a good return. Tennis has a pretty good fan base all over the world. Although it is more popular in developed countries than in developing countries. The Tennis superstars like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are known widely around the world and have hundreds of millions of fans throughout the world.
3. Hockey
One of Most Paying Sports: Basketball is a sport played by two teams of five players on a rectangular court. A team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket during regular play. A field goal scores two points for the shooting team if a player is touching or is closer to the basket than the three-point line, and three points if the player is behind the three-point line. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins. Basketball is The 3rd Most Played and Watched Sport in the World. The number of Basketball fans ranges from 2 to 3 billion. Most of the fans are concentrated in the US, Canada, China, Japan, and the Philippines.
2. Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on a field at the center of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. The two competing teams take turns to bat, attempting to score runs. While one team is batting, the other team fields. Cricket has three different formats i.e. Test, ODI and T20. Cricket is very popular in India, Pakistan, Australia, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, West Indies, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe. The fan base of Cricket is limited to some countries. It is not a major sport in the US, most of Europe and Africa. However, some of the biggest countries in the world play this sport. Overall, with about 2 to 3 billion fans, cricket has the 2nd highest number of fans in the world.
1.Soccer
Association football, commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries, making it the world’s most popular sport. The game is played on a rectangular field with a goal at each end. The objective of the game is to score by using any part of the body besides the arms and hands to get the football into the opposing goal. The goalkeepers are the only players allowed to touch the ball with their hands or arms while it is in play and then only in their penalty area.