I had a pretty good idea that football was the most popular sport  in the world, boasting the biggest number of fans.

I can't  remember the site where I got these figures  from, but I was interested to see where cricket lay in world popularity as a sport?

1. Football - 3.5 billion global fans. 

2. Cricket - 2.5 billion global fans.

3. Basketball - 2.2 billion fans.

4. Hockey - 2 million global fans.

In another article in the top 10 most popular sports in terms  of participation, after stirring a mate of mine who is a volleyball player that it was a minor sport, surprisingly, volleyball, badminton and lawn bowls, joined the aforementioned big 4 as  being in the top 10 participant sports.

Why then, in Australia, do the egg ball codes of AFL, union and league, take up so much column space and air time?  They are insignificant globally in terms of participation - and - fan base.

Why does our own domestic Aussie football also assume such a low media profile?

I'm not watching as much domestic football as I was, but many of the objectives set by the then Football Fed Tech Dept, about 12 years ago, are being achieved in the A L. And from what I've seen in women's football, the Matildas.   

Wonder where 2.5 billion comes for cricket. There's 1.5 billion Indians but surely not everyone watches cricket. Lets take 1 billion at the high end. Where does the 1.5 billion come from for the rest of the world?

Australia. South Africa, New Zealand, England and a few other joints. That 2.5 billion number is way wrong.

As for why football has such a low media profile this has been discussed ad nauseum in these pages.

Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka ....... its not inconceivable mate....

+ West indies
2.5 sounds right to me.
I think people underestimate how big of a deal cricket is in India. Saying it's like a religion in India would be an understatement. 

So I allowed a billion from India. Which is way over the top but whatever.

Australia 25 mil
England 56 mil
South Africa 61 mil
Pakistan 230 mil (had no idea there was this many of them.)
Bangladesh 168 mil
Sri Lanka 21 mil
West Indies say 30 mil (Approx. Hard to tell which country follows cricket out of the conglomeration)

Total excluding India and remember only a handful of white people in South Africa care (but I've used the full figure anyway) gives you: 

591 mil.

Halve that because even that is way over the top and you get about 300 mil. So 1.3 billion absolute max.

Probably more realistically about 800 million. 

You are forgetting people that live in other countries. People of Indian heritage live all over the world. I guarantee that there is no shortage of Indian living in the USA who follow the cricket.

The population of the US is 330 mil. Even if you picked 10% of Seppos being Indian that's only 33 million. The number is ridiculous. EDIT: 6% apparently. https://wisdomanswer.com/what-percentage-of-indians-live-in-the-us/

It's like when they say the NRL final was watched by 1.5 billion people. 

Yeah right. Putting it on ESPN 8 (The Ocho) in a country doesn't mean you get to count the whole population as watching it.

I mean the biggest TV events in Australia are the NRL and AFL finals and they top out at sub 4 million. And that's out of 25 million people. Do the math. 

Good point.

I've even met Indians living in Italy who are cricket fanatics. 

The older generations maybe, but the rest are a whole different story. Going by Hollywood stars alone, ask Kumail Nanjiani or Iman Vellaini how the Pakistani NT are going in the T20? Or Mindy Kaling or Aziz Ansari about Virat Kohli? Odds-on they'd have but the bare foggiest about it all💡

When I travelled  there 40 years ago it was huge.

Now India is the epicentre for world cricket, it would be even bigger.

Bangladesh and Pakistan have huge populations while the sport is quite popular in places like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan.

Cricket is very popular in Sri Lanka, but they are only the same population as us, or a bit larger.

I haven't been to Nepal for 40 years. Cricket wasn't that popular in Nepal them, but times could have changed.

I don't want to derail the thread, but  I wasn't expecting cricket to be 2nd.

However, the T20 World Cup is on ATM, which I've been watching live. It is hosted in Aus. Cricket seems to have gained a lot of newer nations - Namibia, Afghanistan, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Scotland, Ireland - as well as most of the Caribbean countries.   

Regular Test playing countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh, have  big  populations too.

Added to big cricket playing countries -  England, South Africa, Aus, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, West Indies ( comprising a number of countries) - it is a fair chunk of the world's population. 

I thought football would have a lot more fans relative to cricket. 

 

Scribes in Australia have grown up following the major codes Afl and Nrl (Cricket in summer). As recently as twenty years ago, sokkah was wogball.
It could take at least a couple of generations to get the roundball code up the pecking order, if possible. Meanwhile, the football code in this country
must keep making all the right moves in order to achieve success alround.

100% there is no way 2.5bn people follow cricket let alone watch it....

if you combined the population of the countries that play football you wouldnt have 2.5bn ppl and i dare say outside of Indian most people do not follow cricket 

Also how is Hockey 4 with only 2 million fans im assuming you meant 2bn in which id say the same thing as cricket there isnt even 2bn people in the nations that play Hockey 

As for 3.5bn football fans sounds pretty high 1.1bn ppl watch the world cup final i'd say almost every single football fan would watch that but assuming 100m miss out the actually football fans number would be around 1.2bn 

2.2bn for Basketball is also probably 10x what is the real number as only about 17m watched the NBA finals series - about 1.6m people watch on average a game there is no way you're hitting 2.2bn fans 

Football and Basketball yes it is global. Cricket isn't. Cricket only played mainly 15 countries out of 209 nations around the world. Population in West Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc) alone are over 2 billions.

90 % of the world wouldnt know how to play cricket and hardly on the news. As for  Hockey , Ice hockey is very popular in USA, Canada and field Hockey is popular in West Asia again ( India , Pakistan etc).

South Asia I mean

Why does a sport like Rugby League get so much media attention?
Because in half the country it's extremely  popular.
Let's say if the two Sydney papers decided to stop covering League tomorrow?
What do you reckon happens?
1.  they both go out of business
2.  a new news outlet starts up focusing on covering League and becomes the most widely read outlet in the land.

that's why it commands so much media space

In Tassie, League, and Union, receive very little media coverage. We are swamped with AFL, T20 cricket, and now Basketball.

I'd like more League  and Union media coverage, and less AFL. The egg ball codes played in ACT, Q and NSW at least have national Aussie teams playing international comps. 

Read about two months ago that the Tour De France over all its days has the biggest audience of any event.... WC is number 2, with the Cricket WC No 3.

Going from memory it was TDF 3.9 billion, WC 3.8 billion, Cricket WC 2.2 billion.... then it fell right away.... like most thing the DTF could be for 10 minutes but thats what I read. 

Of course. It's like when they say the World cup was watched by 5 billion people or whatever. That's 10 minutes from any match over a 30 day period. The numbers are meaningless.

Clearly football and basketball are massive. Cricket would be up there and hockey and possibly volleyball. My overarching point is the numbers are off in the realms of fantasy.

What's the criteria? 'Do you like cricket'?

'Yes'.

'Right you're counted.' 

Sorry, but which hockey was mentioned in the survey you’re referring to? I presume it’s ice hockey?

Field hockey. They're mad for it on the sub continent.

Field hockey.

There are 84 countries with a world ranking by the ICC in T20 cricket.  All but 6 have played international games in the last 12 months.  Number of games ranges between 12 and 48.

Asia is a big target for growth with an aim to grow the game in China especially Shanghai.  The game is played in 21 universities and it is said that 1,000,000 students know the game and players play at least once a week.

The US is another target market and along with the West Indies will co-host the 2024 T20 World Cup.

T20 is not cricket, its fustal to football.
Love Test cricket, but never seen a full game of T20.

You and I are in a minority, Robbos.

Most cricket fans prefer T20.

Sounds like they have AFL in charge of their numbers. 

American got baseball the sport they created so no way England's Cricket will challenge that. And in Asia nobody cares about cricket Japan and South Korea baseball is their number 1 sport (more popular than soccer). Other than south Asia (India , Pakistan etc) nobody cares about Cricket. Just because 84 countries in ICC doest mean anything where 70 countries just participate but didn't care about it.

^^100%.

AFL claims a presence in something like 50 countries. Besides expats no one gives a flying fuck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_playing_Australian_rules_football

Anywhere that was part of the British Empire will have to a greater or lesser extent football, cricket, rugby, tennis, golf and hockey. Given how extensive the British empire was and the longevity of it there is no surprise football, cricket and even hockey are so ingrained. 

For many years the top 4 Hockey teams were Australia, NZ, India and Pakistan.  

I was in India when Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, etc. were accused of being cheats and there was massive tension between kur respective sides.

On the Indian the Indian 24 hour news channel, there practically nothing but it discussed. It was endless.

D you got it from this link
https://www.topendsports.com/world/lists/popular-sport/fans.htm

Trouble is you can check out one site after another and you'll get different stats.
As Muz quoted how and what was asked in the survey or what.

One thing is for sure Football is No1 near on every site at least thats a constant.

Here's another
https://www.realbuzz.com/articles-interests/sports-activities/article/top-10-most-popular-participation-sports-in-the-world/

No, I didn't get if from that link because basket ball was third at 2.2 million and field hockey 4th at 2 million.

Your link is interesting though. Appreciate you posting the link, LFC.

I haven't seen a top 10 in terms of fans, only a top 4.

 I've seen a top 10 in terms of participation - where volleyball and lawn bowls made it into the top 10. That is the second site you posted that was based on participation in sports where I extrapolated that info. 

I'm not sure which criteria the site I sourced, used to determine one's interest in a sport? I have seen other sites with football having 4 billion fans though.