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Americans consider sport to be * American Football * Basketball * Baseball * Ice Hockey Of which Ice Hockey is the only one really played outside of Americ

Americans consider sport to be * American Football * Basketball * Baseball * Ice Hockey Of which Ice Hockey is the only one really played outside of America (and I believe even that's mostly Canada which is basically America) And why not city would ever fund a private team's stadium (like PSD or Tottenham), they do sometimes fund national stadiums (like Wembley)

Loranubi 5y ago
Baseball is huge in Japan and other Asian countries and has been for a long time.
- toyg 5y ago
  Also Cuba.
  - astura 5y ago
    And the Dominican Republic.
qq66 5y ago
Basketball is a major sport worldwide, honestly probably #3 after soccer and cricket and ahead of tennis because of its popularity in China. Baseball and ice hockey are region-specific (Japan/DR/Cuba/Venezuela for baseball and Canada/Russia/Scandinavia for ice hockey).
- toyg 5y ago
  I'd be surprised if cricket was the second sport worldwide, it's not played outside the old British colonies. Granted, one of those ex-colonies is India... Basketball is the second sport in Europe by number of participants, for sure.
  - arethuza 5y ago
    "Basketball is the second sport in Europe by number of participants, for sure." Any references for that?
    - toyg 5y ago
      (I should have said team sports, apologies) It's the second most popular team sport in most European countries, including the major ones. It's the second one even in England, despite low visibility and significant competition by sports that don't really exist elsewhere [0]. [0] https://www.skysports.com/more-sports/news/36244/12069769/basketball-does-the-sport-get-the-respect-and-support-it-deserves https://www.skysports.com/more-sports/news/36244/12069769/ba...
      - arethuza 5y ago
        Fascinating, thanks - I had no idea basketball was that popular - where I live I'd have said rugby was the obvious candidate for the second most popular team sport with other sports like shinty far behind it.
      - notahacker 5y ago
        Number of participants isn't really the best gauge when we're talking about stadia. Basketball might be played in most British schools and casually by many more people in yards with a hoop, but few British people could name a single UK basketball team; our basketball league is essentially ignored by mainstream media. Rugby takes a lot more organization due to being an inherently dangerous sport especially without competent technique and refereeing, but international games see sellout crowds of 80,000 with millions more watching on TV.
      - atchoo 5y ago
        Hmm. I know someone who works in the UK basketball industry and it's very niche as an organised sport. Attendance at local events is really low. Something that sums up basketball in the UK for me is that I have a local basketball court but the kids only play football on it. There will be ethnic/regional variation though so I'm interested in the real figures. These are the only hard figures I can find and it puts basketball behind cricket: https://www.statista.com/statistics/899184/basketball-participation-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/899184/basketball-partic... https://www.statista.com/statistics/899199/cricket-participation-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/899199/cricket-participa... It's ahead of rugby union but about the same if combining with the league variant (ignoring recent covid years). https://www.statista.com/statistics/899308/rugby-union-participation-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/899308/rugby-union-parti... https://www.statista.com/statistics/899302/rugby-league-participation-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/899302/rugby-league-part... Something to bear in mind when comparing it as a "team sport" is that it's not quite like for like. Basketball is much more accessible like tennis - it can be played casually with a couple of friends. A lot of homes will have a hoop in the garden or driveway. Cricket and rugby will mostly be organised teams, dedicated pitches etc. If the question was "do you play in a local sports team" then I expect basketball to not be comparable. There might be more people playing with a frisbee in a park than are members of a local rugby team but calling it "a more popular sport than rugby" would feel misleading by failing to account for different level of commitment/organisation required.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > Canada/Russia/Scandinavia for ice hockey The Nordic countries -- Finland is not in Scandinavia. Also Czechia, Slovakia, and perhaps Germany and Switzerland should also be counted. (Surely there can't be fewer hockey players there than there are baseball players in the Dominican Republic?)
xxs 5y ago
The only one that's not played outside the US is the American Football. Basketball is second (to football) in quite a lot of European countries, and in some like Lithuania, likely the #1. So is Ice Hockey. Baseball is massive in Asia as well.
- toyg 5y ago
  Without "likely", I'm fairly sure it's n.1 in the Baltic region as a whole. It used to be n.1 in Yugoslavia too but I think football has since claimed that spot.
- rascul 5y ago
  American football is also played in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and even Europe a little bit. Certainly not as popular as other sports outside the US, though.
  - revolvingocelot 5y ago
    >American football is also played in Canada Well, sorta. That statement is sufficiently true, but technically incorrect; it'd be a stretch to call Canadian and American football different sports entirely, but the differences, even if minor, are multitudinous enough to merit consideration. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_Canadian_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_Can...
- User23 5y ago
  I have met precisely one German fan of American Football. He rooted for the Stuttgart Stallions[1] who I had never heard of before. So, it’s definitely niche, but there are European leagues. Somewhat amusingly to me they call it “Football” as Americans do. [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_Stallions https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_Stallions
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  American Football is played outside the US and is growing in popularity. Watching NFL games in bars in Mexico City is a lot of fun, and I'm not much of a sports fan.
srhngpr 5y ago
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and is now arguably the 4th most popular sport in the US placing it ahead of NHL (Ice Hockey) and it is fast expanding in reach and popularity across the country. Part of the reason for this is that it is generally a very accessible sport to both play and watch as a spectator. Even for the casual attendee, it provides a fun atmosphere to experience - you don't need to be a hardcore fan to enjoy it. The most recent expansion team, Austin FC, sold out 100% of every home game in their inaugural season with an average of 20k+ attendees in a privately-funded city-owned stadium. Also let's not forget about the USWNT who are the most successful team in international women's soccer.
- spullara 5y ago
  Of all the sports that sportsball people watch, this one is by far the most boring. Kind of amazing really.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    Really? I'm not into watching pro sports, but if I had to pick the most boring one it'd definitely be baseball. People barely even move, and at least in golf they manage to hit the ball somewhere basically every swing.
    - smcl 5y ago
      May I introduce you to: Cricket Like a more sedate baseball but slower and longer
      - lordnacho 5y ago
        Yeah, a sport where you wear a sweater during the summer. For five days. This is also the best sport to show in an office, because people don't watch anything but the wickets. I used to work on a trading floor where they showed it all day on a screen, no problem.
        5y ago
avar 5y ago
Ice hockey is mostly a Canadian and northern European sport, the US last became world champions in 1960. Even the Czech republic is ahead of the US in rankings.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Does winning the Olympics in 1980 not count as world champion? And getting the silver in 2010 isn't exactly terrible imo.
  - xxs 5y ago
    >Does winning the Olympics in 1980 not count as world champion? Olympics (used to) disallow professional athletes in some team competitions. The US basketball dream team of '92 was so fabled b/c it was the 1st time to allow NBA players to partake. So in that regard Olympics don't really count as 'world champion' in pretty much any team sport event. 1980 hockey was no exception and featured "amateurs".
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > 1980 hockey was no exception and featured "amateurs". Where the definition of "amateurs" differed wildly depending on which side of the Iron Curtain you were from... Up to about 1985 the ice hockey World Championship was mostly about who would come second after the Soviet Union (usually Czechoslovakia). The Soviet Union's national team was largely identical to CSKA MOCKBA[1], whose players were all officers[2] who probably didn't do much else while on the clock than play, practice, or exercise for playing hockey. ___ [1]: Club Sport Krasnaja Armija, the Red Army Sports Club Moskva (Moscow) [2]: Long-time goalkeeper Vyacheslav Tretyak ended up a full colonel, IIRC.
  - eCa 5y ago
    > Does winning the Olympics in 1980 not count as world champion? No. That makes them Olympic champions. The world championship is an annual competition[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Hockey_World_Championships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Hockey_World_Championships
twic 5y ago
Although the government did fund the Olympic stadium in London, and then converted it and leased it to West Ham on ludicrously generous terms, which effectively works out as funding a private team's stadium: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/nov/02/west-ham-olympic-stadium-deal-explained-london-mayor-sadiq-khan https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/nov/02/west-ham-...
- fredoralive 5y ago
  It's weird that London 2012 did reasonably well trying to avoid Olympic white elephants with facilities that could be downsized, use of existing sites etc., but really messed up what to do with the main stadium itself. I think the only other major team stadium involving government stuff in the UK was the Coventry Building Society Arena (previously the Ricoh Arena) that used to be partly owned by Coventry City Council alongside a charity. But that was more notable for a long rent dispute between Coventry City FC and the stadium owners and various threats to move / build new stadiums etc., so was presumably less of a gift to the team financially. It's now owned by the Wasps rugby team, who also ended up in some sort of rent dispute with Coventry City FC leading to them playing at Birmginham City's ground for a couple of years.
astura 5y ago
>Ice Hockey is the only one really played outside of America So people really believe this shit? Brittney Griner, a mega star in the WBNA, is currently being detained in Russia on drug charges. What was she doing in Russia in the first place? She was there playing professional basketball for a Russian team. She makes a magnitude larger salary playing in Russia than she does in the WBNA. Baseball is a major sport in Japan and the Caribbean. There's even an MLB team in Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organized_baseball_leagues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organized_baseball_lea... A game very similar to American football (Canadian football) has been played in Canada since the late 1800s.
throwaway6734 5y ago
Baseball is also played in Japan and central America
School-Cotton 5y ago
Basketball and baseball are both extremely popular in many countries outside of the US and Canada. This is typical reverse-American-exceptionalism sneering, where someone assumes that because something differs between the US and the few countries they’re familiar with (usually all in Northern and Western Europe), it must be unique to the US. Baseball is one of the most popular sports in at least Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > Basketball and baseball are both extremely popular in many countries outside of the US and Canada. Basketball, sure. But: > Baseball is one of the most popular sports in at least Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. Where "at least" is also simultaneously "at most", AFAIK. Six is not exactly "many". And, hey, since you're writing from an American perspective, Cuba doesn't exist, so it's only five. And Venezuela? Four. Taiwan will probably be part of the PRC soon, so we're down to three... And how significant is the Dominican Republic, really, in a global perspective? So you're left with pretty much just Japan and South Korea. And are any teams from there even in the "World" Series? So, sorry -- and yes, I'm from Northern Europe and everything -- but you guys really make this "typical reverse-American-exceptionalism sneering" all too easy all too often. :-)
User23 5y ago
> Of which Ice Hockey is the only one really played outside of America (and I believe even that's mostly Canada which is basically America) I hear hockey is popular in Russia too, which is hardly “basically America.”
throwawayboise 5y ago
Ice hockey is far more popular in Canada than America.
llbeansandrice 5y ago
> Of which Ice Hockey is the only one really played outside of America This is hilariously false. Baseball is wildly popular outside of the US, in particular in Japan and the Dominican Republic. Basketball is also incredibly popular outside the US. Just because it's not soccer and the people aren't white doesn't mean it's not popular. By that same metric baseball isn't even that popular in the US.

Loranubi 5y ago

Baseball is huge in Japan and other Asian countries and has been for a long time.

toyg 5y ago
Also Cuba.
- astura 5y ago
  And the Dominican Republic.

qq66 5y ago

Basketball is a major sport worldwide, honestly probably #3 after soccer and cricket and ahead of tennis because of its popularity in China. Baseball and ice hockey are region-specific (Japan/DR/Cuba/Venezuela for baseball and Canada/Russia/Scandinavia for ice hockey).

toyg 5y ago
I'd be surprised if cricket was the second sport worldwide, it's not played outside the old British colonies. Granted, one of those ex-colonies is India... Basketball is the second sport in Europe by number of participants, for sure.
- arethuza 5y ago
  "Basketball is the second sport in Europe by number of participants, for sure." Any references for that?
  - toyg 5y ago
    (I should have said team sports, apologies) It's the second most popular team sport in most European countries, including the major ones. It's the second one even in England, despite low visibility and significant competition by sports that don't really exist elsewhere [0]. [0] https://www.skysports.com/more-sports/news/36244/12069769/basketball-does-the-sport-get-the-respect-and-support-it-deserves https://www.skysports.com/more-sports/news/36244/12069769/ba...
    - arethuza 5y ago
      Fascinating, thanks - I had no idea basketball was that popular - where I live I'd have said rugby was the obvious candidate for the second most popular team sport with other sports like shinty far behind it.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      Number of participants isn't really the best gauge when we're talking about stadia. Basketball might be played in most British schools and casually by many more people in yards with a hoop, but few British people could name a single UK basketball team; our basketball league is essentially ignored by mainstream media. Rugby takes a lot more organization due to being an inherently dangerous sport especially without competent technique and refereeing, but international games see sellout crowds of 80,000 with millions more watching on TV.
    - atchoo 5y ago
      Hmm. I know someone who works in the UK basketball industry and it's very niche as an organised sport. Attendance at local events is really low. Something that sums up basketball in the UK for me is that I have a local basketball court but the kids only play football on it. There will be ethnic/regional variation though so I'm interested in the real figures. These are the only hard figures I can find and it puts basketball behind cricket: https://www.statista.com/statistics/899184/basketball-participation-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/899184/basketball-partic... https://www.statista.com/statistics/899199/cricket-participation-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/899199/cricket-participa... It's ahead of rugby union but about the same if combining with the league variant (ignoring recent covid years). https://www.statista.com/statistics/899308/rugby-union-participation-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/899308/rugby-union-parti... https://www.statista.com/statistics/899302/rugby-league-participation-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/899302/rugby-league-part... Something to bear in mind when comparing it as a "team sport" is that it's not quite like for like. Basketball is much more accessible like tennis - it can be played casually with a couple of friends. A lot of homes will have a hoop in the garden or driveway. Cricket and rugby will mostly be organised teams, dedicated pitches etc. If the question was "do you play in a local sports team" then I expect basketball to not be comparable. There might be more people playing with a frisbee in a park than are members of a local rugby team but calling it "a more popular sport than rugby" would feel misleading by failing to account for different level of commitment/organisation required.
CRConrad 5y ago
> Canada/Russia/Scandinavia for ice hockey The Nordic countries -- Finland is not in Scandinavia. Also Czechia, Slovakia, and perhaps Germany and Switzerland should also be counted. (Surely there can't be fewer hockey players there than there are baseball players in the Dominican Republic?)

xxs 5y ago

The only one that's not played outside the US is the American Football. Basketball is second (to football) in quite a lot of European countries, and in some like Lithuania, likely the #1. So is Ice Hockey. Baseball is massive in Asia as well.

toyg 5y ago
Without "likely", I'm fairly sure it's n.1 in the Baltic region as a whole. It used to be n.1 in Yugoslavia too but I think football has since claimed that spot.
rascul 5y ago
American football is also played in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and even Europe a little bit. Certainly not as popular as other sports outside the US, though.
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  >American football is also played in Canada Well, sorta. That statement is sufficiently true, but technically incorrect; it'd be a stretch to call Canadian and American football different sports entirely, but the differences, even if minor, are multitudinous enough to merit consideration. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_Canadian_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_Can...
User23 5y ago
I have met precisely one German fan of American Football. He rooted for the Stuttgart Stallions[1] who I had never heard of before. So, it’s definitely niche, but there are European leagues. Somewhat amusingly to me they call it “Football” as Americans do. [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_Stallions https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_Stallions
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
American Football is played outside the US and is growing in popularity. Watching NFL games in bars in Mexico City is a lot of fun, and I'm not much of a sports fan.

srhngpr 5y ago

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and is now arguably the 4th most popular sport in the US placing it ahead of NHL (Ice Hockey) and it is fast expanding in reach and popularity across the country. Part of the reason for this is that it is generally a very accessible sport to both play and watch as a spectator. Even for the casual attendee, it provides a fun atmosphere to experience - you don't need to be a hardcore fan to enjoy it. The most recent expansion team, Austin FC, sold out 100% of every home game in their inaugural season with an average of 20k+ attendees in a privately-funded city-owned stadium. Also let's not forget about the USWNT who are the most successful team in international women's soccer.

spullara 5y ago
Of all the sports that sportsball people watch, this one is by far the most boring. Kind of amazing really.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Really? I'm not into watching pro sports, but if I had to pick the most boring one it'd definitely be baseball. People barely even move, and at least in golf they manage to hit the ball somewhere basically every swing.
  - smcl 5y ago
    May I introduce you to: Cricket Like a more sedate baseball but slower and longer
    - lordnacho 5y ago
      Yeah, a sport where you wear a sweater during the summer. For five days. This is also the best sport to show in an office, because people don't watch anything but the wickets. I used to work on a trading floor where they showed it all day on a screen, no problem.
      - 5y ago

avar 5y ago

Ice hockey is mostly a Canadian and northern European sport, the US last became world champions in 1960. Even the Czech republic is ahead of the US in rankings.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
Does winning the Olympics in 1980 not count as world champion? And getting the silver in 2010 isn't exactly terrible imo.
- xxs 5y ago
  >Does winning the Olympics in 1980 not count as world champion? Olympics (used to) disallow professional athletes in some team competitions. The US basketball dream team of '92 was so fabled b/c it was the 1st time to allow NBA players to partake. So in that regard Olympics don't really count as 'world champion' in pretty much any team sport event. 1980 hockey was no exception and featured "amateurs".
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > 1980 hockey was no exception and featured "amateurs". Where the definition of "amateurs" differed wildly depending on which side of the Iron Curtain you were from... Up to about 1985 the ice hockey World Championship was mostly about who would come second after the Soviet Union (usually Czechoslovakia). The Soviet Union's national team was largely identical to CSKA MOCKBA[1], whose players were all officers[2] who probably didn't do much else while on the clock than play, practice, or exercise for playing hockey. ___ [1]: Club Sport Krasnaja Armija, the Red Army Sports Club Moskva (Moscow) [2]: Long-time goalkeeper Vyacheslav Tretyak ended up a full colonel, IIRC.
- eCa 5y ago
  > Does winning the Olympics in 1980 not count as world champion? No. That makes them Olympic champions. The world championship is an annual competition[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Hockey_World_Championships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Hockey_World_Championships

twic 5y ago

Although the government did fund the Olympic stadium in London, and then converted it and leased it to West Ham on ludicrously generous terms, which effectively works out as funding a private team's stadium: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/nov/02/west-ham-olympic-stadium-deal-explained-london-mayor-sadiq-khan https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/nov/02/west-ham-...

fredoralive 5y ago
It's weird that London 2012 did reasonably well trying to avoid Olympic white elephants with facilities that could be downsized, use of existing sites etc., but really messed up what to do with the main stadium itself. I think the only other major team stadium involving government stuff in the UK was the Coventry Building Society Arena (previously the Ricoh Arena) that used to be partly owned by Coventry City Council alongside a charity. But that was more notable for a long rent dispute between Coventry City FC and the stadium owners and various threats to move / build new stadiums etc., so was presumably less of a gift to the team financially. It's now owned by the Wasps rugby team, who also ended up in some sort of rent dispute with Coventry City FC leading to them playing at Birmginham City's ground for a couple of years.

astura 5y ago

>Ice Hockey is the only one really played outside of America So people really believe this shit? Brittney Griner, a mega star in the WBNA, is currently being detained in Russia on drug charges. What was she doing in Russia in the first place? She was there playing professional basketball for a Russian team. She makes a magnitude larger salary playing in Russia than she does in the WBNA. Baseball is a major sport in Japan and the Caribbean. There's even an MLB team in Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organized_baseball_leagues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organized_baseball_lea... A game very similar to American football (Canadian football) has been played in Canada since the late 1800s.

throwaway6734 5y ago

Baseball is also played in Japan and central America

School-Cotton 5y ago

Basketball and baseball are both extremely popular in many countries outside of the US and Canada. This is typical reverse-American-exceptionalism sneering, where someone assumes that because something differs between the US and the few countries they’re familiar with (usually all in Northern and Western Europe), it must be unique to the US. Baseball is one of the most popular sports in at least Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.

CRConrad 5y ago
> Basketball and baseball are both extremely popular in many countries outside of the US and Canada. Basketball, sure. But: > Baseball is one of the most popular sports in at least Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. Where "at least" is also simultaneously "at most", AFAIK. Six is not exactly "many". And, hey, since you're writing from an American perspective, Cuba doesn't exist, so it's only five. And Venezuela? Four. Taiwan will probably be part of the PRC soon, so we're down to three... And how significant is the Dominican Republic, really, in a global perspective? So you're left with pretty much just Japan and South Korea. And are any teams from there even in the "World" Series? So, sorry -- and yes, I'm from Northern Europe and everything -- but you guys really make this "typical reverse-American-exceptionalism sneering" all too easy all too often. :-)

User23 5y ago

> Of which Ice Hockey is the only one really played outside of America (and I believe even that's mostly Canada which is basically America) I hear hockey is popular in Russia too, which is hardly “basically America.”

throwawayboise 5y ago

Ice hockey is far more popular in Canada than America.

llbeansandrice 5y ago

> Of which Ice Hockey is the only one really played outside of America This is hilariously false. Baseball is wildly popular outside of the US, in particular in Japan and the Dominican Republic. Basketball is also incredibly popular outside the US. Just because it's not soccer and the people aren't white doesn't mean it's not popular. By that same metric baseball isn't even that popular in the US.