Pointless thread which will be ridiculed but with recent improvements in tennis and basketball, I thought it would be interesting to rank sports according to how good Australia is at them, compared to the rest of the world. This isn't a ranking according to the popularity of the sport in Australia or the number of kids playing them. Some of it will be unquantifiable but you can guesstimate. And the sport has to be played at international level. Obviously I'll forget heaps of sports, so just add them.

New criteria. The sport must be played at Summer/Winter Olympics or have a huge place in Commonwealth sporting tradition and be very popular (cricket and rugby).

1) Cricket
2) Hockey
3) Rugby Union
4) Basketball
5) Swimming
6) Golf
7) Tennis
8) Canoeing (otherwise known as Kayaking)
9) Water Polo
10) Rowing
11) Triathlon
12) Volleyball
13) Cycling (track and road)
14) Football
15) Aths
16) Equestrian
17) Snow sports
18) Ice hockey

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 07:08:54 PM

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Gets little publicity but we're 13th in the world at volleyball

36th ice hockey

Netball would be up there.

Darts, Archery and Shooting?

and Rowing, kayaking etc?

Hahah I forgot about hockey.

I've ranked tennis higher than I probably should have done but there's a lot of hope for Kyrgios. When you add Kyrgios to Kokkinakis and Tomic, we should rise up the rankings and one of them may have a reasonable chance of winning a grand slam in the next few years.

Basketball too, I've ranked maybe too high, but there's a reasonable of chance we'll medal at Rio.

It's probably harsh I've ranked ice hockey so low when they're ranked about twice as high as football (or something like that, at a guess). But the chance of Australia doing well against the ice hockey powerhouses is very slim. Whereas, should Australia qualify for Russia 2018, and get a non group of death, you'd hope they'd be a chance of getting out of the group (given last World Cup).

Need to have more than 6 or 7 countries playing any sport before qualifying for this list. (No swimming is not a world sport. There are about 2 or 3 countries that take it seriously. Us the US and maybe China.)

I love Australia but if you take off the green and gold glasses for a minute we are only good at sports no other bastards play. (Woohoo world champions AFL!)

There are about 3 or 4 sports where Australia punches above it's weight.

Field hockey. Men's and women's.
Waterpolo. Men's and women's.
Basketball. Women's.

Maybe Cycling. (Track cycling.)

That's about it.

Cricket, Rugby league, Netball, even Union to some extent are colonial hangovers that are only played by a handful of countries and yes we're good at those.

Everything else.... tell him he's dreamin'.

It is a massive myth that Australians punch above our weight in sport. The plucky underdog.

Look at how our Olympic medal counts have plummeted in just the last 2 outings now other countries have started taking it seriously. I mean FFS England beat us at the last big show.

Next Olympics we will be out of the top 10 and there'll be no coming back.

Cricket is massive. Have you any idea how many people there are in India who live and by die? Anyhoo the best countries (minus the Scandinavian countries) play cricket \:d/

How in heavens is swimming not a world sport? The world super powers take it seriously. Look at the G8 countries. The US, China, Japan, France, Germany Russia, the UK, etc. take it seriously. Ok the UK are usually shit at it (but the amount of money they spend on it is immense, by Australian standards).

Cricket is massive in about 5 or 6 countries. There are 208 or more countries in the world. Do the math.

My point still stands. Australia is good at sports hardly anyone plays.

Just think for a minute how good Australia would be in basketball if the 100 of thousands of Australian girls played that instead of netball.

Think of the talent drain that the AFL is with regards to Australian athletes on the world stage.

Swimming. You've listed 7 countries.

Take the blinkers off.

Pick just about any sport where more than, say, 2 dozen countries play seriously and we'll be nowhere near the top 5 with the exception of the few I listed above. There may be one or two others I've forgotten.

Lol England has 3 times our population....

New Zealand and Australia do punch above their weight.

I'm not bagging Australia out Crackers style I'm just pointing out the facts.

Uncomfortable they may be to the myth-makers but facts they are.

This is, sadly, very true. We don't put enough money into Olympic sport at elite or grassroots level. You need do that to have a hope of competing with China, the US, Russia, the UK, etc. Gold medals are bought every bit as much as they're earned. The only hope we have is for individuals to have absolute rippers. If we ever want to do well again we need to put similar amounts of money into funding sport that the UK do. And in order to finance such expenditure, we'd need to copy their National Lottery system or something similar. But that's unfeasible because the morons in this country just use the Pokies (a substitute service). Or we need a US style college system, but we don't have the population base.

With regards to what sports?

NOTE: Pick a sport that more than a few countries play.

Why the hell are we funding a few, a tiny minority of athletes, to win a few gold medals. At a cost of millions too. Wouldn't that money be better spent, healthwise and community wise on programs for the grassroots particpants?

As wonderful as it is when we win an Olympic gold and there's a warm and fuzzy feeling in our lounge rooms fatty boombalada is hardly likely to get off his obese arse and start kayaking or take up clay target shooting.

I love the Olympics, I'll cheer for Oz everytime but you have to ask would the money be better spent elsewhere for the greater benefit. I think I read somewhere the cost per gold medal at the last Olympics was in the $17 million ballpark. (Or thereabouts.)

And if we do punch above our weight how is it that England beat us? I mean we punch above our weight right?

.

What blinkers? This isn't a debate about to what extent these sports can be considered global. It's a discussion relating to ranking sports according to how good Australia is at them. These sports are "international" by virtue of being competed in by a number of nations, either at the Olympics (the yard stick) or in the Commonwealth (which still has plenty of resonance in its respective countries)

By your criteria, the only truly global sport is football. Nothing else is truly global. That's fine, but other sports are still international and competed at a high level.

Cricket. As I say, how many people are there in India again? The fact of the matter is that, ipso facto, a large proportion of the globe have a keen interest in cricket. Cricket's popular (albeit not popular enough) in countries where we have long sporting and cultural traditions and rivalries. That's suffices. There's a reason why, for many of us in the UK/Aus/SA/NZ/India (and once upon a time the Caribbean), cricket's the most important sport in the world. Football being of equal importance, for me.

Swimming. I can list more countries. I repeat, the world's most powerful countries take it seriously. Lots of Eastern European countries with less money also take it seriously. It's competed at very high levels in a number of countries.

You're spot on about the AFL. We'd do sooooo much better at cricket and Olympic sports if there was no AFL. I personally know a few guys who did very well at nationals/internationals for Olympic sports at youth level but choose AFL because it pays considerably more and offers far more chance of playing. Gradually, football would be far better off if AFL wasn't there. One of my pipe dreams is to dream up a way in which the talent drain can be stopped.

So back on topic, we seem to do decently at track cycling.

Road less so but we have riders in some of the big pro teams.

The UK funds it. I'd have absolutely no qualms about seeing some hefty tax put on sports betting and used to fund sport at elite and grassroots level.

Golf???

Surely cycling should be a bit higher up and tennis lower....

I'm being a soothsayer :lol:

Great point about golf

surfen

White rich man's sport. But yes we do OK at golf.

Arhhh. Dilemma.

Golf isn't contested at the Olympics. But it's more than international enough and requires such immense skill levels, let's make an exception.

The title of the thread is Ranking men's sports according to how good Australia is compared to the rest of the world.

My answer to that is, if other countries are playing them then not very,

Don't get upset because I don't agree with your premise.

I think in sports like forumula 1, moto gp, tennis, x games, cycling, surfing. Australia stacks up very well


Edited by lukerobinho: 24/6/2015 08:33:51 PM

Good fun day, boring sport.

You're misinterpreting the premise. For argument's sake, Australia could be ranked 99th in the world at hockey, 100th at basketball and could be the 101st strongest nation at aths and the 102nd strongest nation at tennis. If we didn't play sports such as cricket, rugby, etc. and were no better at any other sports, then I'd rank it as:

1)Hockey
2) Basketball
3) Aths
4) Tennis

I'm sorry I've done a poor job at explaining that. But, suffice it to say, the premise of the thread is not about Australia being good or bad compared to the rest of the world (or the other countries which compete, if you prefer). It's about ranking sports according to how Australia fares compared to the rest of the world.

Let's put it simply....

Our population is the 52nd largest in the world.... In most sports, we rank higher than 52.