Survey Analysis : Most Popular Sport : Cricket is the second most popular sport after soccer.. How is it possible??

[AnkurUpadhyay]

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world.. No doubt.. But I was very surprised to find that cricket is the second most popular game in the world.... I mean cricket is played in a handful of countries only.. Then how can it be so popular?? http://football-meets-cricket.blogspot.in/2013/08/most-popular-sport.html

[adi B]

india = 1/6th of world population

[AnkurUpadhyay]

ya.. but indians play other sports too...

[cowboysfan]

ya.. but indians play other sports too...

like kabaddi?

[rixxuu]

not surprised at all. cricket is played by some big populated regions. and is spread in almost all continents. tennis just loses the 2nd spot because of asia i think.

[kubrickian]

Mostly because India's 1.2 billion population is mad about cricket. Very few people watch or play other sports compared to cricket in India.

[G_B_]

and the good news for cricket is that as the Indian economy grows there will be a trickle down effect felt outside India. Looking at rugby hmm the financial picture is not so good.

[AnkurUpadhyay]

Icc should look forward to new markets... with smaller formats like 20-20, cricket can do really good...

[zakk]

IPL Rocks :cheer:

[Crookbond]

[Lord]

^ whats that?

[SLICKR392]

^They've indexed the sports popular in their respective countries.

I thought Rugby was more famous than Cricket in Australia.

[Lord]

^ Cricket isnt popular in Africa?:hmmm:

[SLICKR392]

^ Cricket isnt popular in Africa?:hmmm:

Soccer's more famous there but yeah, there seems to be barely any red in Africa, which is surprising. :hmmm:

[G_B_]

In south africa blacks like football whites prefer rugby union asians and coloured prefer cricket. No idea about Zimbabwe. I think cricket must run football close in that country. Their cricket team is somewhere while their football team is no where.

[G_B_]

It also shows the role of T20 T20 with the money it brings has revived the sport in West Indies and more and more youth are attracted to it due to its heritage and now the fact that they can make a good living out of it. The subcontinent in total makes up like 1.7 billion people.

[Vilander]

China will not bother about Cricket, since they look at sport in a different way. They would play olympics because the rich countries in the world do well in it, they will do everything required in football because of same reason. But since cricket is mostly made of poor- 3rd world countries like India they will not care about it much. ICC-BCCI should try to promote cricket in other poor- 3rd world countries in Africa/Polynesia they are the best bet for cricket..they can focus on countries with malnutrition and genetic weakness' like India that will render cricket as a favorable sport since other sports require physical strength and would be less attractive for the people. But finding a large poor, malnutritioned, genetically week population outside of Indian subcontinent would be pretty difficult. PS: i am sure Australians would be having a thing or two to say about being grouped in Cricket, they sure are a track and field/ rugby kind of country, unlike India which has no other sport.

[G_B_]

I think we need to promote cricket and get the teams from Afghanistan Nepal Netherlands Scotland Ireland Kenya In a level where they are at the same level as Zim-BD

[SLICKR392]

I think we need to promote cricket and get the teams from Afghanistan Nepal Netherlands Scotland Ireland Kenya In a level where they are at the same level as Zim-BD

Afghan and Ireland seem to be coming up nicely. Scotland looked good for a brief period and haven't heard of cricket from there lately.

[G_B_]

That thing about Australia in sport is that recently a survey said that 35% of people saw cricket as their first sport. so unlike say south asian countries Australia does not have an absolute majority in cricket. Rugby in Australia is made up of so many codes be it union league or even Aussie rules that it is totally disjointed. Combined probably they are number 1. But there are significant differences in the way in which they are played.