I have just made a table of all nations considering the latest world rankings of the main team sports: football, basket, rugby, cricket, volleyball, hockey (incl. ice), baseball, handball and water-polo. I didn't put tennis (davis cup) as it is still individual sport.
I gave higher score for more popular sports worldwide (i considered how many countries take part in main events and how many members has each association. Well here it is (top 15). Does it respect the true current value?
1. USA
2. Spain
3. Argentina
4. Italy
5. Australia
6. Germany
7. Russia
8. Brazil
9. Serbia
10. France
11. England
12. New Zeland
13. Holland
14. South Africa
15. Croatia.
Uk is not 11th. England is. They just got points with footie, cricket and rugby.
USA, australia and argentina are more complete.
My method.
Take the latest world rankings and give points top to bottom.
Football and basket (biggest team sport in the world after football, by number of countries associated and members per nation) are given more points, slightly less for rugby and others. While cricket is yes played by over a billion (yeah, convenients..indian population) but it's just 12 nations worldwide. With this reasoning i can say that table tennis is hugely popular because is played by over a billion. (china). Even volleyball counts more nations and members than rugby. Just google them.
Obviously I have given less points to other minor sports.
Italy is above of Australia due to their high rankings in Fooball, volley and basket with appearances in waterpolo and rugby. Australia is not a big nation in football and basket, that's why.
See, spain is 2 because they WIN in football and basket, the major sports I considered. Again, i included only Team sports. I understand that it will never be perfect or ideal, but i was just trying to get a realistic scenario of performance by nations. I was actually expecting to see australia and argentina top when i started calculating.
By reading the comments i really get worried about how all sports events happening outside uk are skimmed through the media depending on their popularity. I can guarantee you that cricket is unknown all around the world (except that 12 nations) as i can guarantee you that volley is really popular, but you won't believe it until you ditch daily mail, go around the web and do some search.
I gave higher score for more popular sports worldwide (i considered how many countries take part in main events and how many members has each association. Well here it is (top 15). Does it respect the true current value?
1. USA
2. Spain
3. Argentina
4. Italy
5. Australia
6. Germany
7. Russia
8. Brazil
9. Serbia
10. France
11. England
12. New Zeland
13. Holland
14. South Africa
15. Croatia.
Uk is not 11th. England is. They just got points with footie, cricket and rugby.
USA, australia and argentina are more complete.
My method.
Take the latest world rankings and give points top to bottom.
Football and basket (biggest team sport in the world after football, by number of countries associated and members per nation) are given more points, slightly less for rugby and others. While cricket is yes played by over a billion (yeah, convenients..indian population) but it's just 12 nations worldwide. With this reasoning i can say that table tennis is hugely popular because is played by over a billion. (china). Even volleyball counts more nations and members than rugby. Just google them.
Obviously I have given less points to other minor sports.
Italy is above of Australia due to their high rankings in Fooball, volley and basket with appearances in waterpolo and rugby. Australia is not a big nation in football and basket, that's why.
See, spain is 2 because they WIN in football and basket, the major sports I considered. Again, i included only Team sports. I understand that it will never be perfect or ideal, but i was just trying to get a realistic scenario of performance by nations. I was actually expecting to see australia and argentina top when i started calculating.
By reading the comments i really get worried about how all sports events happening outside uk are skimmed through the media depending on their popularity. I can guarantee you that cricket is unknown all around the world (except that 12 nations) as i can guarantee you that volley is really popular, but you won't believe it until you ditch daily mail, go around the web and do some search.