How important is Football/Soccer on your country?

[Randec]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexmorr...y-now-surging/ practitioners is secondary to viewership. The cultural shift among millennials and the rising number of Hispanics in the US are the major reasons why Football is growing. I refuse to call Handegg Football.

From your own article...

Why is MLS finally turning the corner? Hunt can’t point to just one catalyst, but he’s confident in its trajectory. It may never catch up with the NFL, but the league is now nipping at the heels of the bottom of the big four pro sports (see chart below).

Also, I doubt the soccer viewership increase numbers could touch MMA, which probably wasn't included in this article. MMA is the actual fastest growing sport, both in the United States and abroad.

[Deleted]

Always people from the anglosphere have to be the different ones.. prefer different sports... use inches, feet, pounds,farenheit, drive on the other side (UK), etc..

[Rixis]

Always people from the anglosphere have to be the different ones.. prefer different sports... use inches, feet, pounds,farenheit, drive on the other side (UK), etc..

You know the majority of the world drove on the left up until quite recently.

Also the image linked above shows that MLS (not the only football league shown in the us) is almost at NHL levels of fandom and it's increasing, they don't know where it will peak, without context that image doesn't mean anything.

[Risale]

Football is the one and only name for the game, you might be wearing socks but mostly those are inside the cleats.

Just out of curiosity why do americans call football well football as far as I know only 1 guy per team ever actually puts his foot against a ball and this happens what a max of like 10-15 times (no clue but not a lot) in a 4 hour game, you lot love to stop a game for commercials it seems also something I don't get, reason for asking is that to me the game has more connection to rugby then actual football.

Now where I live it is football, football more football then in the winter its skating which we tend to do well then its back to football.
In short football is part of our dna with a bit of genetic slip in winter time to accommodate skating.

Very nice image, warms my football infused blood.

Relevant: Most popular sport per country (US divided in states)

[Azgraal]

Here in Portugal there was a saying back in the 20th century that the holy trinity of Portugal was Football, Fátima and Fado, so you can imagine its importance in our culture.

The downside to it is that virtually any other sport is left almost unnoticed as people seem to only care about football.

That being said, F.C. Porto!!!

[Deleted]

A lot of people I know consider football to be the most important thing in life, I dont get it myself.

[wowaccounttom]

Ok ill bite.

Basketball = only big in america.
Baseball = only big in america.

nooo.. Japan would like to disagree with you

[Deleted]

Just reading this entire thread through is quite funny.
It seems like everyone but the Americans talk about how much fun they where having playing Football, and all the Americans are doing is trying to belittle and degrade football to something that only children plays.

Why not just accept that the whole world outside of USA and Canada loves football and not Handegg And that its ok? The reason small kids in your country play football is because its fun to play. The reason grownups play Handegg is because thats where the money is

Also to try and explain how important football is in Denmark. We have never won the world championship, and only once have we won the European Championship.

Its been more then 20 years since we won, but we are still living large on it

I'm a big fan of PSG(France) and Bayern Munich(Germany)

[wowaccounttom]

Just reading this entire thread through is quite funny.
It seems like everyone but the Americans talk about how much fun they where having playing Football, and all the Americans are doing is trying to belittle and degrade football to something that only children plays.

Why not just accept that the whole world outside of USA and Canada loves football and not Handegg And that its ok? The reason small kids in your country play football is because its fun to play. The reason grownups play Handegg is because thats where the money is

I dont know about the rest of Canada, but in Ontario, while not the #1 sport, it most certainly gets crazy when the world cup and european league finals air.... especially during summer.. for some reason, people dont enjoy playing soccer in the snow even though its awesome exercise... mmm that reminds me to write that down in my to do list next winter.

[Zelk]

I play 3 hours a week, watch on average 5 hours of football a week too. Also about 7-8 hours a week playing FIFA and Football manager. I get pissed every week during the Premier League season as my club causes me great pain and this summer I get a month of drinking and watching football extra. England aren't amazing at football right now but come June we'll see millions of St George's crosses pinned to cars. lorries, houses and pubs.

[Ciddy]

I don't care much for it personally, but college football is really popular where I live (Georgia, southeastern US). I hear people talk about it all the time, rattle off stats about certain players, how this one player is really strong this year and will make it big, etc. All goes in one ear and out the other, but I hear about it all the time. Also, my Dad is a big Atlanta Falcons fan.

I never hear much talk about soccer.

- - - Updated - - -

Women's curling is the greatest sport ever

set phasers to fap!

Ooh. Yes please.

[Deleted]

I come from England, so that's pretty much enough said.

But i'll play cricket over football hands down.

[D-Throes]

Hey man, I never said it was a fair assessment. That's just my impression of general perceptions of the sport in my country based off entirely anecdotal evidence. Most guys get into sports when they're boys or young teens. Their thoughts and opinions aren't exactly unbiased and fair at that age.

But I stand by it not being a contact sport. Just because there's some very slight contact, rarely, doesn't make it a contact sport.

its a contact sport, in the early years of it, it was worse, because players lost careers do to injuries, fifa made it more strict...

[Austilias]

Theyre driven by the passion and love for the sport. Real "heroes".

They are also known to commemorate terrorists in the naming of certain parks/teams. Gaelic Football is one thing; the GAA is quite another, and certainly quite provoking at times, when they want to be.

As to football; it's very popular in my country. Too popular, if you ask me. Sport is one of the few things for which I hold anything from a minor opinion, to none at all. It is one of the few things in life that I literally could not care any less about for 99% of the time. An effective way to torture me would be to force me to watch episodes of 'A Question of Sport'.

[Zoaric]

Why not just accept that the whole world outside of USA and Canada loves football and not American Football And that its ok? The reason small kids in your country play football is because its fun to play. The reason grownups play American Football is because thats where the money is

Pretty sure, at least around here, the reason the kids play soccer (often they don't; it's
basketball, American football, or baseball,) is it can be boiled down to "Kick this ball
passed that guy. Don't let the other guys do that with out guy." So it's easy to do with
little danger of injury.

Whereas when the kids play American football, even just touch, there's a decent risk
of injury. (Again, at least around here.) American football is distilled into "Hike, pass/
hand-off/run, run the ball passed that line, don't let the other team touch/tackle you."

Also, even as a kid, I didn't find soccer fun. I've always found American football fun,
however.

[Mystrome]

The thing not many people know why American football is called that, is because of the size of the ball. It's a foot long. Football is named either after having to play the game by foot, or because you use your feet to play. Noone knows which.

Anyway, i don't understand why so many Americans like to talk trash about the game. It's by far the most popular sports in the world. The last world championship was viewed by 3,200,000,000 people. That's almost half this planet's population. When you don't like (to watch) a particular sport that's fine. I love watching football, especially when my team plays. I just can't stand watching baseball or American football for example. Trust me i've tried. It just bores me to death. Does that mean those games are shit? No. They're just not for me. The lack of a clock speeding things along is a major factor in that for me.

[Olo]

Why not just accept that the whole world outside of USA and Canada loves football and not Handegg And that its ok? The reason small kids in your country play football is because its fun to play. The reason grownups play Handegg is because thats where the money is

Young children in america play soccer because they don't have the hand-eye coordination or physical toughness to play popular american sports at that age.

[oxymoronic]

soccer is a poor mans sport thus not that important to americans as it signals your place in society... the very bottom.

[jasdasm]

spectator sports suck, its more fun to play than to watch them.

best example would be baseball, or golf, its like watching grass grow....

that said, soccer is big in singapore, big enough for people to get ripped off by incompetent media outlets to watch 20 people chasing a ball.

i suspect most people watch sports, even the boring ones, because they're gambling so it adds that little "excitement" in to the game.

i watch it because... i enjoy it

strange isnt it ?

[Manhands]

Relevant: Most popular sport per country (US divided in states)

SOURCE, pls. This is fantastic.

Particularly interesting as an American:

1. American Football > Basketball/Baseball for the vast majority of the country.
2. I can't think of anything that connects California, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina besides Basketball.
3. Baseball is dumb.

Also interesting that Laos and Cambodia love Kick-Boxing, that Gaelic Football is a thing, that Archery is listed but completely invisible, and that Table Tennis is a sport.