Knol's Top-10 List of the World's Most Popular Team Sports
Here is a list of the top 10 most popular team sports, as originally defined by hunmoni on Google Knol. As this list is limited to team sports, there are some popular individual sports which may be more popular, such as tennis. See also a similar list by the same author of top world sports. See too the index to other top 10 lists of the world's most popular sports.
| rank | Sport |
|---|---|
| 1. | Soccer / Association Football |
| 2. | Cricket |
| 3. | Basketball |
| 4. | Baseball |
| 5. | Rugby Union |
| 6. | Field Hockey |
| 7. | Volleyball |
| 8. | Ice Hockey |
| 9. | American Football |
| 10. | Rugby League |
reference: http://knol.google.com/k/most-popular-team-sports-soccer-cricket-baseball-basketball-rugby-hockey (no longer available)
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Old Comments
Commenting is closed on this page, though you can read some previous comments below which may answer some of your questions.
- Max Graham (2020)
Good list!! I don't mean to be rude, but Rugby League is a ridiculous addition to this list. It is played in two states in Australia, Auckland and a smattering of places in the North of England. Its supporters, which include a moronic media, do like to publish a lot of nonsense about its massive popularity, so its easy to mistakenly Believe it is not the tiny, insignificant sport it actually is. It wouldn't be in top 5 team sports in Australia, and this is the only Place that really cares about it. Netball is way bigger. Also, you are missing one big sport in handball. - Kashif (2014)
no the three most popular sports of the world are soccer basketball and cricket - Anonymous (2014)
fake list. Rugby is 3rd most played & watched sport in the world. - Anon anonymous (2015)
Prove it. - Icyboy771z . anonymous (2015)
i doubt so, basketball is really popular all over the world. China alone has 400 million recreational basketball players. Philippines (population 100 million) has basketball as their national sport. Basketball is also very popular in America and Europe... - Scritty icyboy771z . (2016)
Rugby is not near the 3rd spot. The top 3 are soccer, cricket and basketball. Then the participation and viewing figures drop off a cliff with the 4th place (baseball) having less than half the viewers and players of basketball. Rugby might be 5th though handball or kabaddi sometimes beat it year on year, American football could be considered a real minority sport worldwide with a minuscule participation level and audience compared to the top 3 but then hardly anyone plays it outside the USA. Forgot how many times since the 70's Euro gridiron leagues have been started - then closed down a few years later. The BAFL is going ok at the moment but participation figures are barely reach 1500 players across the whole of the UK - and that's after 40 years of effort. It's less than the heyday of UK Gridiron which was probably the late 80's where I think over 5,000 played in one season in organised games. I notice on the BAFL website they haven't even updated the stats for Diamond Opal and Sapphire series for 2015 yet - never mind that the 2016 season has already finished. That's a good indicator of indifference - when you can't even be bothered to put the winners of your major competitions up on your official website. I'm sure they'll keep trying. The top 3 are head and shoulders above the rest. - Max Graham Scritty (2020)
I live in Sweden and the kid next door to me plays American Football. - Nhsmith Scritty (2018)
Actually, American football is now being played across Asia, in both Japan, Russia, and some of China. This has happened in 2015-16, so it is still pretty recent and maybe you just didn't know, but, knowing this, I just had to add this in.
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