Why cricket is not popular?

[BoyBrumby]

Yeah, but it's not like we can disregard India just because there's a lot of Indians.

It's the second most populous country and cricket is king.

A lot of other sports would kill for that state of affairs.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

It’s not a question of disregarding India. The original post is about cricket not being more widely popular.

 

[nightprowler10]

Yeah, but it's not like we can disregard India just because there's a lot of Indians.

Hasn't stopped some CWers from trying

 

[_00_deathscar]

Cricket's mathematically popularity is due to the size of India's population, but it's not widespread except in some parts of the non cricketing world where ex-pats have set up clubs.

Isn’t the same largely true for basketball? It’s two nations: USA and China. Sure outside that it’s sporadically popular but that’s basically what makes up the huge bulk.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Isn't basketball like North Korea's national sport?

 

[nightprowler10]

Bball is huge in Europe, and pretty famous in some South American countries.

 

[morgieb]

Yeah in recent years basketball has had significant spread. It's nowhere near as popular in the US as cricket is in India but in Eastern Europe it's massive and in other parts of the West it at least has a substantial following.

Cricket's popularity is more like rugby, but cricket has a significant advantage of its subcontential reach which puts it over the top I think.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Isn’t the same largely true for basketball? It’s two nations: USA and China. Sure outside that it’s sporadically popular but that’s basically what makes up the huge bulk.

wot

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Isn't basketball like North Korea's national sport?

Kim Jong once completed a triple-triple entirely in the first quarter.

 

[_00_deathscar]

Bball is huge in Europe, and pretty famous in some South American countries.

Very secondary though compared to football. It's only really the #1 (or close to #1) sport in a few countries, and those 2 countries make up the huge bulk of its' following.

Some of the eastern European countries where it's popular have a tiny population - they do produce good players and all that but they're not really massive places.

I just mean in a way that it's not all that different from cricket - it is certainly more widespread, but largely among places that have a much smaller population - with the bulk made up by USA and China.

 

[morgieb]

Even in America I wouldn't say basketball is that big. It's certainly popular but its appeal seems to be concentrated to the black population - it's not niche amongst other races but it's not that big either.

China admittedly might be different - certainly most of the kids shooting hoops when I was at school were of Chinese descent - but I'm not sure if it's as massive there as cricket is in India.

 

[Daemon]

Basketball also has random locals watching all over the world even if their national team is crap.

For cricket it’s mostly expats who do that.

 

[_00_deathscar]

Basketball also has random locals watching all over the world even if their national team is crap.

For cricket it’s mostly expats who do that.

Yea that's fair - I guess my point was does it matter if 2 million Lithuanians and a few other Eastern Europeans are hugely into basketball? The Indian subcontinent has 1.7 billion people.

It's more widespread, and has more $ in it (again, largely due to USA and China - the others don't really matter all that much), but not entirely sure it's more followed than cricket is.

 

[Flem274*]

Sooo crickets pretty popular then?

National sport of Aus, India, Pak, SL and Bangers. #2 in NZ. #3 in SA and England. On the rise in Ireland and Afghanistan.

That's a wide distribution and some pretty populous countries. Even if India didn't care, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SA and England are not exactly deserted.

 

[Jack1]

Sooo crickets pretty popular then?

National sport of Aus, India, Pak, SL and Bangers. #2 in NZ. #3 in SA and England. On the rise in Ireland and Afghanistan.

That's a wide distribution and some pretty populous countries. Even if India didn't care, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SA and England are not exactly deserted.

Better

 

[Line and Length]

It's not popular because throughout the history of the game the administrators have done everything they can to exclude others from playing.

The earliest days it was just a sport for the rich elite and excluded the working classes, then after colonization it was just a sport for the white man. Indigenous populations and women were not invited to pay, and often were literally banned from the grounds.

It took ages for cricket to become inclusive of all races and genders (tho tbf one can argue they were ahead of the curve when compared to several other sports), but by that point the major cricket boards were now more interested in excluding smaller nations from playing the game at the highest level, let alone involving them in the running and administration of it.

That was changing for a brief while, and there was more emphasis put on Associate cricket tournaments and developing cricket in new regions. Nations like SL, BD became full members, the ACC was set up with Associates as the founding members, and we had tournaments like the WCL and Intercontinental Cup. But then the Big 3 takeover happened. Forget new nations, the existing non-Big 3 ones were now struggling. In 2007 we had 16 teams in a World Cup, but by 2019 we only had 10. We're the only sport that is shrinking our World Cup.

Cricket already is a difficult sport at the best of times to introduce to people unfamiliar with it. The laws are complex, you need a lot of resources to play it (compared to other sports), and we have three different formats of the same sport essentially competing for the attention of a single market. It does not help when the Administrators in charge are more interested in making a quick buck through broadcast deals and petty political bickering rather than actually trying to grow how many people engage with the sport.

Despite that all metrics show cricket to be amongst the Top 5 sports in the world. Yes there are a billion Indians that account for this, but even then it's extremely popular in a lot of nations, and it's growth in the past few decades has been solid. Stories like Afghanistan, Thailand women and Sandeep Lamichhanne are evidence of this.

Cricket is just fundamentally a great sport, we just need administrators who believe in it and are willing to get out of it's way. However this is unlikely given how the global game is currently administered.

Your first 3 paragraphs, while essentially true, apply not only to cricket but to society in general.

 

[Jack1]

Kim Jong once completed a triple-triple entirely in the first quarter.

In the NBA

 

[TheJediBrah]

Sooo crickets pretty popular then?

National sport of Aus, India, Pak, SL and Bangers. #2 in NZ. #3 in SA and England. On the rise in Ireland and Afghanistan.

That's a wide distribution and some pretty populous countries. Even if India didn't care, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SA and England are not exactly deserted.

National sport of Aus? Not even close. AFL might have something to say about that.

Quick search tells me that cricket is #4 in Aus behind AFL, Rugby league and Soccer. AFL is #1 by a long way.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Apparently cricket is only #3 in NZ too, behind Netball??? Surely that can't be right. ****ing netball?

same sources say it's #2 in England, and #4 in South Africa. But I'm questioning that again because apparently cycling is ahead of cricket in SA. Didn't realise being a pest on the road could be a national sport.

 

[Teja.]

National sport of Aus? Not even close. AFL might have something to say about that.

Quick search tells me that cricket is #4 in Aus behind AFL, Rugby league and Soccer. AFL is #1 by a long way.

I might be wrong but since we're operating on the quick search level, this was my result: