Second most popular team sport?

So me and a friend were talking about it about and he brought up the fact that basketball is the world's second most popular sport, at first I thought no way but looking at the men's and women's olympic games over the past few years nations from each continent have participated and the popularity of the sport I'm starting to sway in that direction too, I know rugby and cricket are pretty big internationally but off the top of my head I think basketball covers more corners of the earth, what do you think?

If there's enough unique options I'll put up a poll

Rugby, more celebrated than basketball, more celebrated and more stable than cricket.

If you go by the amount of people who play the sport, then it would be cricket because India has >1bn people.

Cricket apparently.

But the appeal is very centralized with Commonwealth countries (UK, India, Australia)
The sport could probably gain a lot more followers should they drop the old format completely for professionals and stick to the shorter (although still quite long version compared to other team sports) of the game

Field Hockey apparently have a lot of fans spread around the world, way more countries involved than in Cricket. Vollyball is also up there, bigger than Basketball at least.
Supposedly even Baseball have a bigger following, although recent developments in European Basketball might not be taken into account.

Football is by far the most popular here, followed by Handball, which has a relatively small group of countries interested, and even a few of those that are really good at it don't offer it much media time (Spain and France prime examples of this, top 5 teams in men and women, barely get a full page in sports newssections when they win)


And no SBSP he didn't mean how many people played the sport, even if that is grossly overestimated by brining in India, i have doubt that their enormous population of poor people can even watch/follow the sport let alone play it.

Not cricket, having a bunch of fanatic cunts in India shouldn't tip the balance. Should be examined universally.

Muhkoo wrote:Cricket apparently.

But the appeal is very centralized with Commonwealth countries (UK, India, Australia)
The sport could probably gain a lot more followers should they drop the old format completely for professionals and stick to the shorter (although still quite long version compared to other team sports) of the game

Field Hockey apparently have a lot of fans spread around the world, way more countries involved than in Cricket. Vollyball is also up there, bigger than Basketball at least.
Supposedly even Baseball have a bigger following, although recent developments in European Basketball might not be taken into account.

Football is by far the most popular here, followed by Handball, which has a relatively small group of countries interested, and even a few of those that are really good at it don't offer it much media time (Spain and France prime examples of this, top 5 teams in men and women, barely get a full page in sports newssections when they win)


And no SBSP he didn't mean how many people played the sport, even if that is grossly overestimated by brining in India, i have doubt that their enormous population of poor people can even watch/follow the sport let alone play it.

No way baseball is bigger than basketball, I'd even doubt volleyball is to be honest.

People don't realize baseball is also popular in a few countries outside the US.

Japan, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Canada, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Nicaragua, Panama and even Mexico all have their own leagues and faithful fans.

Actually, it's moderately popular in Netherlands too. They have a decent national baseball team and even a major leauger. Henricus Nicolas VandenHurk, or "Rick" for short.

Dodger legend Tommy Lasorda is known for a humorous quote about the increasingly international game.

For starting pitchers we have two Dominicans, one Italian, one Mexican and one Japanese. In the bullpen we have a Venezuelan, a Mexican, a guy from the United States and a guy from St. Louis.

I'd say it's cricket because of India. 3rd Baseball.

Why the fuck do you keep bumping threads?