Which Sports are most Popular in your nation?

[Xanjori]

Rugby too, as people tend to like watching it more and more, but actually playing the game is another thing entirely . But even then, the amount of licenced players has been growing quite a lot these last ten years.

Id have thought Rugby would be quite popular in France, especially with reaching the World Cup final last year. I know in England ever since we won it in 2003 people went kinda mad for Rugby, not a similar impact in France on reaching the final?

[Jackmoves]

Trade the medieval weapons for firearms and explosives and you get our scandinavian military as it is today. Not even joking. =)

OT: Sweden

Hockey
Football (Soccer)
Floorball (Indoor Bandy)
Alpine skiing
Cross-country skiing
Handball

While football is number one by attendance, I'd like to think hockey is a more popular sport in sweden when it comes to events and such. Most swedes likes hockey, but far from all of us likes football.

Also, I've seen a few swedes in here claiming that speedway is a popular sport. As it may be in their region, it's not a very wide spread sport in the country and there's only a few people actually riding those bikes. Floorball, handball and skiing are all far more exerted (is that a proper way to use that word?) than sweedway. Not to bash speedway in any way, just trying to be objective.

Guess we're pretty similar to canadians, saw one of them writing hockey on like four out of six choices and that's probably how my personal list would look like aswell.

I don't like speedway one bit but it's no denial that it's big, you see it on the sports news all the time etc, big events pull lots of people etc. I don't think we got a speedway team in Gothenburg but it still pulls big crowds when they got the events at Ullevi.

Also football is deffo the biggest sport here(Gothenburg) imo, same goes for Stockholm. Hockey I'd imagine would be the biggest sport in Karlstad/Jönköping because thats their biggest sports teams.

Frölunda got nothing really on IFK.
And AIK Hockey don't really have a leg to stand on compared to AIK Football.

Also if you compare the number of people that practise Hockey and Football there is just no comparison. It's a huge difference, Larath's post seems quite accurate.

[Deleted]

The netherlands:

1. Football ( or soccer for americans)
and then..
and then..
and then..
2. Ice skating
3. Swimming
4. Volleyball

Basicly football gets about 80% of all the attention.

[xkungx]

Brasil

1 - Soccer
2 - MMA
3 - Volleyball
4 - Beach Soccer
5 - Indoor soccer (futsal)
6 - Formula1

[Deleted]

Id have thought Rugby would be quite popular in France, especially with reaching the World Cup final last year. I know in England ever since we won it in 2003 people went kinda mad for Rugby, not a similar impact in France on reaching the final?

It is popular, but like I said, it's mainly watched, and not that much played by people because it's seen as a difficult and dangerous sport. But I'm pretty sure the world cup and the 6 nations tournament have quite a lot of people watching. And a lot of women here got interested in rugby because of the Stade Français nude calendar .
And I'm saying there aren't that many licenced rugby players, but the numbers still went from 240.5k in 2005 to 390.2k in 2010, with a big jump between 2007 and 2008 (from 285.4k to 359.7k) mostly because of the hosting of the world cup.
http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tablea...id=NATTEF05401 for more info.

[Deleted]

Britain:

Football (soccer)
Rugby
Cricket
Tennis
Formula 1
Cycling
Snooker
Rowing

My favourites are Cycling and Football.

[Deleted]

It is popular, but like I said, it's mainly watched, and not that much played by people because it's seen as a difficult and dangerous sport.

i think its same in the UK, its watched by a lot of people, but not many play it. unlike football where you can play with a couple of people and a small amount of space, you need quite a bit of room for rugby and more than 3 people really. and yeah, its quite a bit more dangerous and painful than playing football :P

[Greeney]

Canada:
Hockey
US Football
Baseball
Basketball
Soccer

[Bigbazz]

Football
Formula 1

Most likely, the UK.

[Thelxi]

Football (soccer) and Basketball. Greece

[Deleted]

Romania.

Football (soccer). Which is astonishing, considering how much we suck at international competitions.

[lopk]

Football
Football
Football
Football
Baseball
Football - in that order.

Personally I can't stand (American) football - I just find it so dang boring.

[Deleted]

Finland

Ice hockey
Skiing
Floorball
Finnish baseball
Motor sports

Football is a very small sport here which annoys me a bit as I like football. Ice hockey is the absolutely most popular sport here which annoys me as well as it's probably the sport I like the least. :/

[Mamut]

I think in Poland

1. Football.
2. Ski Jumping.
3. Volleyboll.

[Bolson13]

In the Netherlands the most popular (that have the most intrest, not factoring the people participating) are:
Football
Golf (which I find a little weird)
Tennis
Field hockey
Swimming

Ignoring sports like "walking" and "bridge" for it though. Also ignoring cardio fitness. This is not completely fair though since a sport like racing would never get up high.

Now for marketing value. I am guessing this but basically what seems to be the most popular in the media:
- Football (all matched live on paid TV channels, replays of the matches are sold as well, And of course the EC and WC)
- Cycling (3 large tours all shown live, most interesting classics shown live)
- Speed skating (All international matches shown live, in the winter pretty much every weekend)
- Tennis (Wimbledon/RG shown live, US open replays, Australia part of the evening matches., replays of pre grand slam tournies are shown to see who will be favourite, 2 major tournies in Holland shown live)
- Formula 1 (all races live, replays in most sportnews shows)
- Field Hockey. (1 match on sunday on TV + replays, big international tournaments, European club tournament matches shown but maybe not live.)
- Formula 1 (all races live, replays in most sportnews shows)

[Deleted]

Cyprus:

1. Football (soccer)
2. ???
3. ???

[Santti]

Finland:

Ice Hockey
Finnish Baseball

[Deleted]

Denmark:
Football
Handball
Bicycling
Badminton
Golf

[Knight Gil]

Portugal:

1-Football
2-Football
3-Football
4-Football
5-Whichever sport we have an athlete / team that we consider to have chances to win (even if they don't) because the media doesn't talk about anything else.
....
6-Football

It's pretty sad

[Northy]

Whenever I watch soccer I just wanna scream "Use your hands!" You got these two extremely useful appendages yet they just hang there like salamis all game. Seems like a waste.