cricket vs rugby vs baseball vs others...

[BoyBrumby]

I'm not sure that having the World Cup as a gold standard is such a massive competitive advantage. Most sports which are very fervently followed in a particular country have very traditional competitions that weren't initially started as a World Cup of nations: take the Tour de France or Paris-Roubaix of cycling, Holmenkollen Ski Games, the Ashes, the National and American Leagues of baseball, the Rose Bowl game, Monaco Grand Prix. All were organised reasonably locally and without any international overarching body setting them up. (If it hadn't rained so much in 1912, we'd still be watching Triangular Test series, I reckon.)

Admittedly all those sports are struggling to spread to new countries, but sports with football-style World Cups are merely seen as copycats of football, and do not really captivate a country the way cricket does in India, winter sports in Norway, cycling in Belgium and France. I'd hazard a guess, too, that the amount of people in England who can quote a reasonable world ranking of cricket is larger than those who can quote a reasonable ranking of rugby, simply because rugby appears to vanish between World Cups (like cricket "vanishes" between Ashes series) - feel free to correct me, but it's how it appears from a) this forum, b) BBC website, c) the occasional English paper. Of course those who are interested buy Wisden and Sky anyway.

Lose tradition, and all you get a few people tuning in at World Cups and nothing else.

It'd probably be touch & go, depending on who you spoke to and whereabouts in the country they were. Rugby doesn't really disappear either, the Six Nations is actually pretty sizeable over here. Since we (England) decided we'd gotten too big for the old British Championships in footy the Six Nations is the main chance for internecine squabbling on the sporting field between the constituent countries of the UK. Club Rugby (both codes) is also a far bigger deal than county cricket too inasmuch as people actually pay to go & see it. CC is really rather like the Loch Ness Monster; often spoken of, but rarely seen.

I'm possibly the wrong person to answer this as I am a Union (& League for that matter) fan. The WC has certainly worked for Union tho inasmuch as it does provide a showcase for the sport of a global stage without really overshadowing the other longer-established elements of the sport like the Six Nations & Lions tours.

 

[Burgey]

And I think all Australians should be erased from the world stage. How do you feel about that?


See, I don't even understand what you're prattling on about here. And are you decrying the ARU for getting sponsorship? Good gracious.


Players can't enter from the side of the ruck at all - it's not that hard to understand.



Long-distance placekicking is just as much a skill as anything else, and it encourages the defending team not to give away silly or cynical penalties.

Your posts are doing a pretty good job.

Look, the current laws in union need a tidy-up, there's no denying that, but your posts smack of someone who has barely watched 10 minutes of union. That might be due to your own boredom, but it sounds like you're more the type who doesn't like to count past six anyway. Enjoy your league.










/releases anger valve

1. Well, it would give your guys a chance to win something, so if that floats your boat, so be it.

2. No, I'm decrying them cheapening a national jumper by putting sponsorship on it - and I know other sports do it too, but it bugs me.

3. But it's never interpreted consistently.

4. And encourages the attacking side to halt play for a minute or two by kicking a goal instead of scoring a try.

5. I'm doing my best - it's been a long world cup.

6. Actually I played it for 6 years at school (there's that number again ), which I found moderately enjoyable but I just find the provincial and international stuff regularly dull and rarely entertaining (especially the way Australian sides are playing it at the moment). Further, the referees seem to think., like many football refs do, that we are all there to watch them rather than the players - it's infuriating, frankly. And I do enjoy my league, but it's got much more complicated now they have a zero tackle and you have to factor that in. If it gets any more complicated I'll have to take off my socks and shoes to count with my toes as well....

 

[LA ICE-E]

Soccer is the hands down world game because there is hardly any part of the world where its not played and viewed, tennis and cricket rank after soccer in terms of popularity IMO.

Well we all know soccer is # 1 so no need to mention that.

Motorsports,Rugby,Baseball,Golf and American Football are sports with limited appeal (as its attracts only a certain section of viewers) and its only popular in one particular country.

So is cricket.

 

[LA ICE-E]

Your joking right? 10 Countries play Cricket and the Rugby World Cup is played by like 100 odd teams overall can not remember how many in the WC but the RWC is clearly the bigger spectacle.

if you say 100 countries play in the Rugby wc then guess what? about 100 countries play in the Cricket wc.

Rugby is clearly a superior Winter sport than Soccer.

crazy?

 

[LA ICE-E]

That is not 100% true.

Rugby: it is followed in all Commonwealth countries (except in Asia). Then, it is rather popular in France, Italy and Argentina. Not much outside these countries.

Cricket too is followed in all commonwealth countries and there's nation's like Afghanistan, Nepal, Argentina and other places where it's well established amateur level.

Baseball: you can find good baseball in all the american continent. USA (of course), but also Canada and Latin America. Baseball is loved in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba (it is a religion over there), Dominican Republic. Also in Colombia and Venezuela you can find good teams. And don't forget the Far East countries, like Japan and South Korea, where baseball is extremely popular. Also in China baseball is having some popularity. What about Europe? Netherlands, Italy, but no more than that.

The last ones like china are about as popular as say in ireland for cricket?

That's the "problem" of cricket. If you count the raw numbers, you have billions of fans. But where are they located? In one specific area: the subcontinent. But if we go outside the subcontinent, where can we find good cricket? Very hard...

As above, I don't think Afghanistan is part of of the subcontinent.

In the american continent (with the exception of the Windies) cricket is almost unknown. An example: http://www.tsn.ca/

It's Bermuda's national sport. Even if it's not main stream here, if you go by numbers than a lot of people know about it but it's a not majority though.

Africa? Ok, there is some very good cricket (South Africa) and decent cricket (Kenya, Namibia)... But apart from those countries?

Tanzania and Uganda.

Asia? If we exclude the subcontinent, where can we find good cricket? Almost nowhere.

Thing is if you look at soccer then it's going to be the same thing but a bit larger. There's only so many good teams. Even in soccer if you exclude the top you won't have many.

If I had to choose the 2nd most popular sport in the world after soccer (which is by far #1), I would pick basketball. It is played at very high level in all the american continent (Canada, USA, Brazil, Argentina), in all Europe (except the British Isles: Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, the former Yugoslavian countries and RUSSIA).

Asia? Well, there is China. Basketball always had a good tradition in China and with Yao Ming playing in the NBA, basketball has reached high levels of popularity.

Oceania? Definitely basketball is not as popular as cricket or rugby, but Australia and New Zealand are good basketball teams.

Just a comparison. How many countries are members of ICC? 97. How many countries are members of FIBA (Federation international de Basketball - International Basketball Association)? 213.

So: if we count the raw numbers, Cricket is undoubtedly a very popular sport around the world. But, actually, it is played at a good level only in very few countries. Just think of this: only 10 nations are allowed to play the highest form of the game (test cricket). I find very hard to consider cricket the 2nd most popular game in the world, when outside those 10 nations, the game is almost unknown.

Basketball is played in a lot of places but it's popular in in America's and Europe, i don't think it's china that popular but they do love watching yao represent them. And no Africa either.

Cricket is played on each continent- Asia= subcontinent, Oceania=Aus&NZ Africa= SA, Zim,Ken,Namibia,Uganda, Tanzia etc. Europe= UK, N.America=Bermuda, about 9 countries in WI S.America=Guyana

Cricket though is limited but if you go like that then except soccer all sports' limited and is popular in only certain parts of the world. Cricket though has the # in terms of population and is represented in all the continents.

 

[pasag]

Your joking right? 10 Countries play Cricket and the Rugby World Cup is played by like 100 odd teams overall can not remember how many in the WC but the RWC is clearly the bigger spectacle.

Cbf responding to this before because it hurts my head, but here goes. Firstly we're talking about the sport in general, I don't know why you've started to bring the WC into things to try and disprove anything. The Rugby World Cup may very well be bigger than the Cricket World Cup, but that doesn't mean the sport is more popular on a world scale. You do know that there is more to the respective sports than their World Cups don't you?

Secondly, delving into your example, wtf does 10 teams vs 100 teams have to do with anything? You are (hopefully) aware that all countries don't all have the same population and that one of the "10" countries you've alluded has over a billion people in it. Furthermore your 10vs100 is even more flawed as there are 97 members in the ICC, all of whom can qualify for the CWC based on how they do in the World Cricket League.

 

[SJS]

How about cricket versus golf ??

 

[LA ICE-E]

Cbf responding to this before because it hurts my head, but here goes. Firstly we're talking about the sport in general, I don't know why you've started to bring the WC into things to try and disprove anything. The Rugby World Cup may very well be bigger than the Cricket World Cup, but that doesn't mean it is more popular on a world scale. You do know that there is more to the respective sports than their World Cups don't you?

Secondly wtf does 10 teams vs 100 teams have to do with anything? You are (hopefully) aware that all countries don't all have the same population and that one of the "10" countries you've alluded has over a billion people in it. Furthermore your 10vs100 is even more flawed as there are 97 members in the ICC, all of whom can qualify for the CWC based on how they do in the World Cricket League.

not to mention some of them are clumped together which are different countries

 

[LA ICE-E]

How about cricket versus golf ??

golf may be played but isn't the most popular in any country i would think. plus i would associate golf with only rich countries. third world countries cant afford any golf courses.

 

[SJS]

golf may be played but isn't the most popular in any country i would think. plus i would associate golf with only rich countries. third world countries cant afford any golf courses.

Cricket too is not the most popular game in many of the countries where it is played. I dont need to name them. But everyone wants to change it.

The basic problem with the game was that it was felt that playing for five days and still getting a draw, often times a boring draw, was bad as a spectacle. But instead of tackiling the problem of no result and long duration (tests have been of shorter duration too with more results) an idea was born to make it shorter and 'snappier'. This has let loose a pandora's box where the administraors of the game are not sure what was needed to keep the flocks (cricket fans) and have completely lost their way.

I assure you that reductin to 20 overs or less in not going to ensure the survival of the game. But so much damage would have been done in killing the original concept of the game that it might become too late to get a new generation interested in cricket (as we have known it) at all since they would be totally unfamiliar with it.

I think I will writte on this in detail one of these days.

 

[LA ICE-E]

Cricket too is not the most popular game in many of the countries where it is played. I dont need to name them. But everyone wants to change it.

Cricket is the most popular of the subcontinent- big factor right there and WI, Aus for summer, Ber etc. While golf i don't is the most popular in any. But you're right it's played in about over 120 countries and its not the most popular in most of them but neither
any other sport. Point that i'm making is golf isn't in any.

The basic problem with the game was that it was felt that playing for five days and still getting a draw, often times a boring draw, was bad as a spectacle. But instead of tackiling the problem of no result and long duration (tests have been of shorter duration too with more results) an idea was born to make it shorter and 'snappier'. This has let loose a pandora's box where the administraors of the game are not sure what was needed to keep the flocks (cricket fans) and have completely lost their way.

I don't get what you're saying if there's anything significant to do with the topic. too long problem solved-20/20, that too short-odi, don't like it-test,no?-sixes, still no? go find a different sport.

I assure you that reductin to 20 overs or less in not going to ensure the survival of the game. But so much damage would have been done in killing the original concept of the game that it might become too late to get a new generation interested in cricket (as we have known it) at all since they would be totally unfamiliar with it.

Again not much to with the topic. You still got the basics and is still cricket. Every sport changes with time and that's how it goes. There isn't even any question of cricket being in survival mode, one day cricket is the cash cow that allows us the extravaganza of Tests, so no point complaining.

 

[SJS]

Cricket is the most popular of the subcontinent- big factor right there and WI, Aus for summer, Ber etc. While golf i don't is the most popular in any. But you're right it's played in about over 120 countries and its not the most popular in most of them but neither
any other sport. Point that i'm making is golf isn't in any.

I don't get what you're saying if there's anything significant to do with the topic. too long problem solved-20/20, that too short-odi, don't like it-test,no?-sixes, still no? go find a different sport.

Again not much to with the topic. You still got the basics and is still cricket. Every sport changes with time and that's how it goes. There isn't even any question of cricket being in survival mode, one day cricket is the cash cow that allows us the extravaganza of Tests, so no point complaining.

1. Golf may not be the most popular sport in any of the countries where it is played but I refered to Golf basically because it is also played over four days and moves slowly and yet has its own fans and makes millions.

The fact that cricket is the most popular game in the sub continent doiesnt make it reason to change the game because the teaming millions say so.

2. I did not write specifically with the topic in mind but as a comment on the continuous cacophony on need to change the game. Yes games evolve but this is done with some use of the head. Not with a look at the bank balance. Reducing the number of overs, reducing the size of boundaries, limiting bowlers from what they can do (the wide ball rule) and so on is just making the game one sided and believe me my dear no one sided contest is worth watching , howsoever much sixers may appeal to you and others.

Cricket is primarily a contest between bat and bowl and the essence of this contest needs to be maintained. Unfortunately, without realising whats going wrong, and pandering to the rants of squealing millions is not a soltion. Those who couldnt care less if the boundary became 35 yards as long as we got 800 runs an inningsas long as what they consider a spectacle is provided are the last people who will ensure the games longevity.

3. Evolution and modification in rules is one thing and whole sale conversion of a game to another game is so stupid its not funny. I am older than you I presume but watch it my dear, the game may change dramatically in the next 20-30 years and you will still have billions screaming for more excitement.

You want excitement? make sure you have a contest. Reduce the contest to a farce and you find that even the 400 plus scores we are getting are not enough fopr those who come for a mela.

Repeating your lament about irrelevance to a thread, if every post was excatly addressing the thread opener we would have too short threads and too may be most of us would end up opening a new thread every time we wanted to say something.

Lets say I am too lazy (and or too old) to do that.

 

[el grapadura]

The main issue here is really what defines the popularity of a sport, and for me, that includes many more factors than in how many countries the sport is played and how big their populations are. Some of those factors include participation and performance levels, as well as spectatorship levels both live and through different media.
These factors in turn have a direct impact on the sport's ability to attract corporate sponsorship, and if the sport is well run administratively, this can generally lead to an increase in the sport's following.
Considering these factors, football/association football/soccer is clearly, and by far, the number 1 sport in the world, because it always rates highly in both participation and spectator categories around the world. With regard to cricket and rugby, I would suggest that cricket is probably more popular, given cricket's popularity on the sub-continent. People may say that rugby is played in 100 countries, but the reality is that it's a minority sport in 98% of those, and even in countries where it is taken seriously (this is primarily NZ, but I suppose you could count in the Home Countries and SA there as well) the playing numbers are still fairly small. So my argument is that more people both play and watch cricket than they do rugby...But overall this is a moot point since my feeling is that most American sports are probably way more ahead of both cricket and rugby in terms of global popularity. The reason for this is that American sports - gridiron, baseball and basketball in particular - are aggressively marketed through satellite/cable television, video games, Internet and a myriad other things that they reach audiences that rugby and cricket could only dream about (the same is true of the English Premier League btw). The end product of this is that people living outside America have increasingly started following American sports and teams in the NFL, NBA and MLB. While this doesn't mean that the American sports have supplanted the traditionally popular sports in other countries, they have found their place alongside them. The same can't be said of cricket and rugby, which have historically speaking struggled to expand their respective games outside its traditional domains - notwithstanding the ICC and IRB claims of how many countries are their members, which, although probably not overblown, usually fail to indicate that in most those countries the state of the respective games has barely reached infancy level and has very rudimentary structures and extremely limited following.

My ten cents worth anyway....

 

[SJS]

My apologies LA ICE-EE.

I thought I was posting today on both this and the 25-25-25-25 thread and should have put the post there I suppose.

 

[LA ICE-E]

1. Golf may not be the most popular sport in any of the countries where it is played but I refered to Golf basically because it is also played over four days and moves slowly and yet has its own fans and makes millions.

The fact that cricket is the most popular game in the sub continent doiesnt make it reason to change the game because the teaming millions say so.

2. I did not write specifically with the topic in mind but as a comment on the continuous cacophony on need to change the game. Yes games evolve but this is done with some use of the head. Not with a look at the bank balance. Reducing the number of overs, reducing the size of boundaries, limiting bowlers from what they can do (the wide ball rule) and so on is just making the game one sided and believe me my dear no one sided contest is worth watching , howsoever much sixers may appeal to you and others.

Thing is though was given into 20/20 but it's best for domestic cricket not international cricket but still some is still ok. 20/20 is just fun and the bowlers will adapt.

Cricket is primarily a contest between bat and bowl and the essence of this contest needs to be maintained. Unfortunately, without realising whats going wrong, and pandering to the rants of squealing millions is not a soltion. Those who couldnt care less if the boundary became 35 yards as long as we got 800 runs an inningsas long as what they consider a spectacle is provided are the last people who will ensure the games longevity.

3. Evolution and modification in rules is one thing and whole sale conversion of a game to another game is so stupid its not funny. I am older than you I presume but watch it my dear, the game may change dramatically in the next 20-30 years and you will still have billions screaming for more excitement.

You want excitement? make sure you have a contest. Reduce the contest to a farce and you find that even the 400 plus scores we are getting are not enough fopr those who come for a mela.

Repeating your lament about irrelevance to a thread, if every post was excatly addressing the thread opener we would have too short threads and too may be most of us would end up opening a new thread every time we wanted to say something.

Lets say I am too lazy (and or too old) to do that.

well i guess you posted in the wrong thread. but it's ok, may be you should delete this and post to the other thread and those are good points on not changing cricket i guess

 

[Josh]

How they come up with viewing figures is always a ridiculous estimate, and they probably just totalled the viewing figures, thus double counting people. Lets say I watch two games of the Rugby WC, I'd probably counts as 2 viewers.

That'd be it.

 

[LA ICE-E]

The main issue here is really what defines the popularity of a sport, and for me, that includes many more factors than in how many countries the sport is played and how big their populations are. Some of those factors include participation and performance levels, as well as spectatorship levels both live and through different media.
These factors in turn have a direct impact on the sport's ability to attract corporate sponsorship, and if the sport is well run administratively, this can generally lead to an increase in the sport's following.
Considering these factors, football/association football/soccer is clearly, and by far, the number 1 sport in the world, because it always rates highly in both participation and spectator categories around the world. With regard to cricket and rugby, I would suggest that cricket is probably more popular, given cricket's popularity on the sub-continent. People may say that rugby is played in 100 countries, but the reality is that it's a minority sport in 98% of those, and even in countries where it is taken seriously (this is primarily NZ, but I suppose you could count in the Home Countries and SA there as well) the playing numbers are still fairly small. So my argument is that more people both play and watch cricket than they do rugby...But overall this is a moot point since my feeling is that most American sports are probably way more ahead of both cricket and rugby in terms of global popularity. The reason for this is that American sports - gridiron, baseball and basketball in particular - are aggressively marketed through satellite/cable television, video games, Internet and a myriad other things that they reach audiences that rugby and cricket could only dream about (the same is true of the English Premier League btw). The end product of this is that people living outside America have increasingly started following American sports and teams in the NFL, NBA and MLB. While this doesn't mean that the American sports have supplanted the traditionally popular sports in other countries, they have found their place alongside them. The same can't be said of cricket and rugby, which have historically speaking struggled to expand their respective games outside its traditional domains - notwithstanding the ICC and IRB claims of how many countries are their members, which, although probably not overblown, usually fail to indicate that in most those countries the state of the respective games has barely reached infancy level and has very rudimentary structures and extremely limited following.

My ten cents worth anyway....

yeah true, most people at least know football baseball and basketball even in places its not played because it's marketed well. Most of the world tries to copy us so our sports have bigger influence than some other sports and people take interest in these kind of things. But that might as well change if china takes up cricket then i would guess that most people would at least know about cricket in places it's not played. That said it doesn't really matter if people know the name of the game if they don't follow it. So knowing the name baseball and that it's a game isn't much of a big deal. Marketing wise of course all our sports(from football to basketball to baseball) beats all other sports, i would guess football even. But followers wise i would guess cricket is close to 2, but basketball is close to there too, i would think more than rugby.

 

[Stefano]

Cricket too is followed in all commonwealth countries and there's nation's like Afghanistan, Nepal, Argentina and other places where it's well established amateur level. As above, I don't think Afghanistan is part of of the subcontinent.

Afghanistan is an affiliate member of ICC, which means that the level is rather low. Nepal and Argentina? Associate Members... But how many people in Argentina really follow cricket? I am not from Argentina, but I don't think that the number is very high. For that matter, we can find basketball teams in Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. But how is that level? I would say that the Bangladeshi basketball team (which is member of FIBA since 1978) is like the Afghanistan cricket team.

You can find every sport everywhere. But there are two questions:

1) How is the overall level?
2) How many people are interested in that game?

In Italy there is a cricket league: but how many people really follow cricket in Italy?

The last ones like china are about as popular as say in ireland for cricket?

China has a long tradition of basketball. Chinese team has won several Asian championships and takes part to every international competion (World Championship and Olympics). And now with Yao Ming, more and more people are watching and playing basketball. By the way: in the internationl ranking, China is the 11th nation in the world.

It's Bermuda's national sport. Even if it's not main stream here, if you go by numbers than a lot of people know about it but it's a not majority though.

Bermuda? There lives just 65,000 people. My hometown, Udine - North East Italy, has more (100,000).

Tanzania and Uganda. Thing is if you look at soccer then it's going to be the same thing but a bit larger. There's only so many good teams. Even in soccer if you exclude the top you won't have many.

Soccer is by far #1 in the world. It is played everywhere. You don't even start a comparison.

Basketball is played in a lot of places but it's popular in in America's and Europe, i don't think it's china that popular but they do love watching yao represent them. And no Africa either.

For China... Read above. You're right that basketball is popular especially in America and Europe, but if you go outside those areas, you can find decent teams. Only in Africa is basketball unpopular, with the only exception of Angola. But if you pick Nepal, Argentina or Afghanistan cricket teams (to show the popularity of cricket in Asia and South America), I can pick you teams like Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Senegal to show basketball popularity in Africa.

In Oceania: Australia and New Zealand are good basketball teams: if they weren't, Australia would not have reached the semi in the 2000 Olympics and New Zealand would not have reached WC semi in 2002. Australia is #10 in the world. NZL #12

Cricket is played on each continent- Asia= subcontinent, Oceania=Aus&NZ Africa= SA, Zim,Ken,Namibia,Uganda, Tanzia etc. Europe= UK, N.America=Bermuda, about 9 countries in WI S.America=Guyana.

Cricket though is limited but if you go like that then except soccer all sports' limited and is popular in only certain parts of the world. Cricket though has the # in terms of population and is represented in all the continents

Yes... But at which level? And how many people are really involved and follow cricket? If you remove the 10 test nations, cricket is almost unknown.

And about America: if you put together the total population of West Indies, I don't think you would reach the population of Paris. And think about this: Canada was involved in the cricket world cup, but in the main canadian internet site about sport, if you want to find some news about cricket, you have to go through the OTHER SPORTS section and (maybe) you will find a little article. Nothing more than this.

I re-write you these numbers.
Members of ICC: 97
Members of FIBA: 213

So, as far as countries are concerned, basketball countries are twice cricket countries. So, that means that basketball is played in many more countries than cricket.

Cricket has the subcontinent: the greatest majority of fans come from there. But, if you remove it, you won't find many cricket fans in the rest of the world. If cricket had the same amount of fans, but distributed in a different way, I would say that cricket is a very popular sport in the world. If we go with the raw numbers, we should say that the most popular sport in the world is table tennis, since it is played by everyone in China.

 

[LA ICE-E]

Afghanistan is an affiliate member of ICC, which means that the level is rather low. Nepal and Argentina? Associate Members... But how many people in Argentina really follow cricket? I am not from Argentina, but I don't think that the number is very high. For that matter, we can find basketball teams in Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. But how is that level? I would say that the Bangladeshi basketball team (which is member of FIBA since 1978) is like the Afghanistan cricket team.

Even if Afghanistan is an affiliate cricket is a major sport there and so is in nepal and other countries like that. I'm not from argentina either but after soccer i read it somewhere that's it's a distant but still major and established amateur sport. For that matter no that's not the point, we are not talking about where it's played at high level or not. We are talking about where it is a fairly popular sport.

You can find every sport everywhere. But there are two questions:

1) How is the overall level?
2) How many people are interested in that game?

In Italy there is a cricket league: but how many people really follow cricket in Italy?

Overall level doesn't matter in the subject and the places i mentioned, people are fairly interested in it.

China has a long tradition of basketball. Chinese team has won several Asian championships and takes part to every international competion (World Championship and Olympics). And now with Yao Ming, more and more people are watching and playing basketball. By the way: in the internationl ranking, China is the 11th nation in the world.

Ok, guess what Ireland's been winning the European international championship and is ranked 12th now AND now with Ireland doing to good in the WC more and more people are watching the game too. so now either you are going to count ireland as a place where cricket is a major sport too or you're not going to count china in the case of basketball.

Bermuda? There lives just 65,000 people. My hometown, Udine - North East Italy, has more (100,000).

Not the point, if you go by population than it's clearly cricket, but then you count out the places where's densely populated with cricket fans and so i show you other places where its popular too. Point being made is it's played and is a major sport other than the top ten but why is the top ten not being counted? are they not people? it's like saying what are the great and wealthy countries but 1st remove usa, china, uk, australia etc etc and then name them well the rest isn't going to be much wealthy.
Soccer is by far #1 in the world. It is played everywhere. You don't even start a comparison.

For China... Read above. You're right that basketball is popular especially in America and Europe, but if you go outside those areas, you can find decent teams. Only in Africa is basketball unpopular, with the only exception of Angola. But if you pick Nepal, Argentina or Afghanistan cricket teams (to show the popularity of cricket in Asia and South America), I can pick you teams like Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Senegal to show basketball popularity in Africa.

No, i know that it's one of the major sports there, but i doubt it's the same case in africa.
And i wasn't saying it's greatly popular in Argentina but that it's one of the sports well established there but it is in places like afganistan and nepal etc it's popular.

In Oceania: Australia and New Zealand are good basketball teams: if they weren't, Australia would not have reached the semi in the 2000 Olympics and New Zealand would not have reached WC semi in 2002. Australia is #10 in the world. NZL #12

How good a team doesn't automatically make it a major sport in that country. I would say canada is a good team, they should fight but that doesn't make it a major sport in canada.

Yes... But at which level? And how many people are really involved and follow cricket? If you remove the 10 test nations, cricket is almost unknown.

The countries i mentioned, like Afghanistan and nepal it's among the major sports. So no it's not unknown. And why are we removing the top ten? if you remove the places that a sport is the most popular at then of course its going to fall.

And about America: if you put together the total population of West Indies, I don't think you would reach the population of Paris. And think about this: Canada was involved in the cricket world cup, but in the main canadian internet site about sport, if you want to find some news about cricket, you have to go through the OTHER SPORTS section and (maybe) you will find a little article. Nothing more than this.

I don't get you're point, 1st you say that not many countries play it then you go by population. If you go by population than clearly cricket is bigger, but it's limited. Still the case is that it's still spread around the globe not just in one place.

I re-write you these numbers.
Members of ICC: 97
Members of FIBA: 213

So, as far as countries are concerned, basketball countries are twice cricket countries. So, that means that basketball is played in many more countries than cricket.

Yeah more countries may play it but not more people and it doesn't matter if they are from one or not and they are not form one area, again there's a top team from every continent in which it is a major sport.

Cricket has the subcontinent: the greatest majority of fans come from there. But, if you remove it, you won't find many cricket fans in the rest of the world. If cricket had the same amount of fans, but distributed in a different way, I would say that cricket is a very popular sport in the world. If we go with the raw numbers, we should say that the most popular sport in the world is table tennis, since it is played by everyone in China.

If you go by raw # then i would guess that the rest of the world, including china plays soccer which is more than tennis. So completely out of context there. And if you remove the subcontinent then you'll still find cricket fans in oceania, africa, europe, and america's and that i think counts as being distributed.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Does anyone seriously believe that cricket is the second most popular sport in the world?