"Biggest" sport in your country

[Buffalo Soldier]

But how on earth can the US be better at football (soccer) than Belgium?! Or did I misinterpret this sentence?

I was wondering the same

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

But how on earth can the US be better at football (soccer) than Belgium?! Or did I misinterpret this sentence?

At least it´s debattable... USA has more WC medals than Belgium for example.
And on the Fifa ranking it´s pretty close (11th BEL vs US 13th)...

Whatever, once Blatter and his mobster organisation Fifa is thrown to where it belongs to (the dustbin), I am sure with then better rules, the giant USA will arise. They simply have a deeper talent pool. Once the soccer moms see exciting 6-3 scores instead of nil nils, they will be more than happy to get all their sons into soccer rather than football (even though, injuries are not more in football than soccer, but the problem is injuries in football are more serious...)

 

[Netserk]

When was the last time Belgium even played a tournament (Euro or WC)? 12 years...

 

[Christian]

When was the last time Belgium even played a tournament (Euro or WC)? 12 years...

IIRC they were at the 1998 Worldcup. I had the Pannini sticker album (all but one!!) and I seem to remember they were in it. Then they hosted together with the Netherlands, that must have been 2000, no? After that I don't know

 

[gooner]

When was the last time Belgium even played a tournament (Euro or WC)? 12 years...

That doesn't mean anything in comparison to the recent US qualification record for World Cups. The CONCACAF section is far easier to go through than the European one. Look at Mexico's qualifying record, it wouldn't be anything near as good as that if they were in the European pool.

Even here in Ireland, we haven't qualified since 2002 and you see in the meantime Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Honduras who are inferior, getting there from that section.

 

[42x16ss]

That would be my impression as well. I attended games in all codes and the strangest experience was seeing a Rugby League club game in the Olympic stadium in Sydney, think it was the Bulldogs v Roosters whom are two of the biggest teams in Sydney yet the place was empty. I didn't understand why they played the game there when they must have known the place would be empty. The lack of atmosphere kind of took away from the actaul game. I saw Manly play on TV a few times and the place was always packed and it looked amazing. Surely its better to play at a smaller venue and get a good buzz rather than play in an big empty stadium.

I did enjoy the AFL and followed the Swans, seen them play in the SCG and the Olympic Stadium, SCG was better as like the Rugby Leage, the Olympic stadium is hard to fill but nowhere near as bad as the Rugby.

The funny thing with League ATM is that when matches are played at the smaller suburban grounds (Leichardt, Brookvale, Kogarah, Woolongong, Bluetongue etc) the matches often sell out quickly. So the clubs are stuck with a max of 12-15k but a great family atmosphere or a huge half empty stadium but with slightly more people....

 

[Buffalo Soldier]

When was the last time Belgium even played a tournament (Euro or WC)? 12 years...

Belgium used to be utter **** for at least a decade. Right now I rate them well above US though.

And like others said: even though US did qualify during that time, I am not even sure they were better than Belgium. What's their track record the last 12 years?

But still, US, Mexico, Ghana and Japan for me are the teams that could surprise (if they are lucky with the draw: maybe even reach semi-finals)

edit: I just noticed this is NOT the WC2014 thread

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

That would be my impression as well. I attended games in all codes and the strangest experience was seeing a Rugby League club game in the Olympic stadium in Sydney, think it was the Bulldogs v Roosters whom are two of the biggest teams in Sydney yet the place was empty. I didn't understand why they played the game there when they must have known the place would be empty.

I think the teams get a percentage of the receipts for playing there. The Olympic Stadium is a bit out the way so they probably need to add an incentive to get events there.

 

[thrawn]

I think the teams get a percentage of the receipts for playing there. The Olympic Stadium is a bit out the way so they probably need to add an incentive to get events there.

I think they get a standard flat amount for playing there too. Essentially, playing at the Olympic Stadium in front of 5k people = more profit than playing in front of 15k at a local stadium. The Olympic Stadium has a great atmosphere when full, terrible when mostly empty.

 

[DenisMenchov]

In Serbia I'll say:

1. Football
2. Basketball
3. Tennis (Because of Djokovic obviously)
4. Handball
5. Water-polo
6. Athletics and swimming

 

[PirazziAttacksVino]

In Romania:

1.Football (which nowadays lives only through memories and the Steaua-Dinamo rivalry, but it's still by far the most popular)

(huge gap-other sports get only about 2 pages in every sports newspaper)

2.Tennis (memories+the ascension of Simona Halep)
3.Gymnastics
4.Handball
5.Boxing, Rugby, Athletics, Water polo
6.Oina (our national sport, but hardly ever practiced)
7.Others sports we are good at: Kickboxing, Fencing, Canoe/Kayak, Swimming, Judo, Rowing, Weightlifting

Cycling was never a sport people were interested in, but now that we have Edy Grosu it can get popular.

 

[anameli]

badminton & football

 

[Martin]

Czech

1. hockey, closely followed by (2.) football
....

after that comes only crumbs (tennis, athletics, cross country skiing or biathlon, maybe shooting).

Lol. Same here /slovakia/.

But some people would argue that the most popular sport in slovakia is slovak pentathlon: beer, wine, vodka, borovicka, slivovica (or any other fruit brandy)

 

[jaylew]

In the United States it really goes like this:

1. NFL Football

(Big Gap)

2. MLB Baseball
3. NCAA Football

(Big gap)

4. Auto racing (mostly NASCAR)
5. NBA (They like to imply they are right behind NFL and MLB, and the media tries to hype the NBA, but it's not even close.)
6. NCAA Basketball
7. NHL
8. Golf

A little surprised F1 is that popular worldwide. I like it and think there's more to it than Indy and certainly NASCAR, but I didn't realize it was that big.

I would disagree with this quite a bit. That said, the US is a big country and it varies by location.

I would say:

NFL Football

(huge gap)

NBA Basketball
NCAA Football
Baseball
Nascar
NHL Hockey
NCAA Basketball
Golf
Tennis

Baseball has become more of a regional sport and is slowing dying except in those specific regions. After years of declining baseball ratings and increasing NBA ratings, basketball now gets consistently better TV ratings than baseball, something unheard of even a decade ago. Baseball still has a hardcore following of mostly older people but younger people just aren't interested for the most part. In fact, baseball has the oldest fan base after golf with 50% of its fanbase over the age of 55. And for some reason baseball has even lost many of its loyal fans over the years. I was talking about this with a group of people the other day and we talked about how we used to love baseball and follow the box scores and now we couldn't even tell you who's won any of the past 5 World Series. And as someone who listens to a lot of local and national sports talk radio, baseball just doesn't get the bandwidth it used to and is talked about way less nationally than basketball.

 

[Netserk]

In Romania:

1.Football (which nowadays lives only through memories and the Steaua-Dinamo rivalry, but it's still by far the most popular)

(huge gap-other sports get only about 2 pages in every sports newspaper)

2.Tennis (memories+the ascension of Simona Halep)
3.Gymnastics
4.Handball
5.Boxing, Rugby, Athletics, Water polo
6.Oina (our national sport, but hardly ever practiced)
7.Others sports we are good at: Kickboxing, Fencing, Canoe/Kayak, Swimming, Judo, Rowing, Weightlifting

Cycling was never a sport people were interested in, but now that we have Edy Grosu it can get popular.

I thought handball would be more popular in Romania :/

I'd like to read how high it ranks in France. Top-5?

 

[SafeBet]

1. Calcio
















2.Roman Catholicism
3. and the rest like aquatics,volleyball etc

Nice try

I'd say it's something like

1) Football
2) Soccer
3) Calciomercato (player transfers during off season)





4) Motors
5) Cycling (big among the oldies)
6) Tennis
7) Alpine Ski
8) Basketball
9) Volleyball
10) Swimming
11) Rugby

 

[Siriuscat]

Scotland...

Feckin Football... misery for an Ice Hockey player
Golf
Cricket (yes unbelievably)/Rugby Union
everything else including cycling is in small minorities.

Shinty is big in the North west and the Islands but I have no clue of the number of players, if it's more than 5000 i'd be gobsmacked.

Without Shinty we'd have no ice hockey in 1800, Scottish immigrants in Nova Scotia are reputed to have played Shinty on ice at Windsor. In Canada, informal hockey games are still called shinny.


Wish I lived in Canada.....

PS.... I hate football

 

[gooner]

Scotland...

Feckin Football... misery for an Ice Hockey player
Golf
Cricket (yes unbelievably)/Rugby Union
everything else including cycling is in small minorities.

Shinty is big in the North west and the Islands but I have no clue of the number of players, if it's more than 5000 i'd be gobsmacked.

Without Shinty we'd have no ice hockey in 1800, Scottish immigrants in Nova Scotia are reputed to have played Shinty on ice at Windsor. In Canada, informal hockey games are still called shinny.


Wish I lived in Canada.....

PS.... I hate football

I was talking up thread about Shinty with Ferryman. The Scottish lads used to play our guys in the hurling combining the both games. It was quite entertaining, a good watch.

 

[RedheadDane]

Scotland...

What about this:

 

[JosephD]

Scotland...
Cricket (yes unbelievably)/

This says a lot about us Scots as we are horrific at cricket and Scottish cricket is hardly on TV its always England...