Which Sports are most Popular in your nation?

[vep]

I have no idea what the most popular sports are in Croatia..

I guess Soccer, Athletics, Handball and swimming. That's about all I know.

I just wait for the day when sport climbing takes over the world!

[Venziir]

Handball and football really. Even though we utterly suck at football. Honestly, ever since we won in Mexico in '92 we've been living in this bubble where we think we are the bees knees at football, when in all honesty - we suck. *Sigh*

[Deleted]

Holland

Football
Hockey
golf
Basketball
Baseball
American Football


Surprised there is no Tennis... NO TENNIS???!??! i think its more populair than american football, except maybe in america

[Voolawl]

1. Pro Football
2. College Football
3. College Basketball
4. Pro Basketball
5. Pro Baseball
...
109. Soccer

This, go America. Except I'd put soccer down at like 1009 with like....ping pong being lower.

[Northern Goblin]

England

1: Football
2: Cricket
3: Rugby
4: F1
5: Tennis

People will point at Wimbledon and note how it gets far more attention than F1, but the rest of the tour seems to pass by, whereas F1 has a constant interest throughout the season with peaks at Monaco and Silverstone.

Football is by far and large the dominant sport in England though, it fills the pubs and sells the satellite and cable subscriptions.

[Aliessil]

Depends if you're talking about doing it or watching it. The other replies I've seen for UK are, I think, as spectator sports. If you're talking about sports we participate in, I'd probably go something like:

Football
Badminton
Cycling
Running
Golf.

No idea about order, though.

[Northern Goblin]

I wouldn't put Badminton over Tennis if we're talking about active participation. Same goes for Cricket and Rugby. There's an awful lot of Sunday league cricket teams and Rugby dominates the University level of sport, and carries on to Sunday league too.

[Deleted]

England:

1) Football
2) Rugby Union (S) Rugby League (N)
3) Rugby League (S) Rugby League (N)
4) Cricket
5) F1
6) Horse Racing?
7) Tennis

I have noticed that watching any Rugby League Matchs the teams seem to be from towns or cities in the North of England rather than the south.
Ascot, Epson, Grand National. The big horse races get alot of air time in England.
Tennis is more a case of Wimbledon for the English, you get some of the other tournaments on the minor channels (ITV4 had aired some of the clay court tennis but thats not one of the main channels)

Football gets the majority of air time Carling cup, FA cup, occasional league game, Champions League and Europa League games are all aired on the free channels.

[Jackmoves]

It's kind of a mix between football and hockey, it's played on ice, it has a small ball (like a baseball I'd say), you use sticks to shoot it, the goals are big and goalkeepers probably have a 1% save percentage (not too fond of it myself, it's mostly played in the northern parts of Sweden). You could also check out the wikipedia page for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandy

It's played outdoors to, not indoors, only reason people like it's becasue it's nice to get out and get a "snow tan", have some coffee and freeze your bloody ass off


Sweden, just my gut feeling

Football(soccer)
Ice Hockey
Track & Field
Handball
Speedway
Cross country skiing

Floorball, Tennis, Golf, Horse Sports, Sailing/boat sports, Motorsports, Bandy etc got their share of followers as well.

Cross-Country skiing is huge, in it's own way, it's tradition, Vasa-Loppet is one of those things that always gets loads of media for example and swedes from all over the country participates, but I'm not sure it gets the blood boiling in THAT many swedes when it comes to competitions.

I think every swede knows someone or a couple of people that has raced Vasa-loppet though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasaloppet

[Northern Goblin]

I completely forgot about the Horse Racing, good shout. It certainly trades a lot of money at the bookmakers.

[Larath]

For sweden: When it comes to like active members its somewhere around


Football
Golf
Floorball
Track and Field
Gymnastics
Icehockey


not really sure where to put in cross-country skiing cause its pretty big but I can't really seems to find numbers for it

if we are talking like spectators though

the top 6 is (and this is actually going to see the sports rather then watching from home)

Icehockey
Football
Motorsports
Floorball
Handball
Horse stuff

on the TV top 6 is

Football
Bandy
Track and Field
Icehockey
Alpine skiing
Cross-Country skiing

[steveyboy]

England

1: Football
2: Cricket
3: Rugby
4: F1
5: Tennis

People will point at Wimbledon and note how it gets far more attention than F1, but the rest of the tour seems to pass by, whereas F1 has a constant interest throughout the season with peaks at Monaco and Silverstone.

Football is by far and large the dominant sport in England though, it fills the pubs and sells the satellite and cable subscriptions.

This + Ice hocky is becomming a bit more popular. Well especially in nottingham. Tends to half fill an arena weekly.

[Deleted]

O/T I Love this print, which I found in an op shop for 2 dollars many years ago.

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.

[Darkfie1d]

Iran:

Football (Soccer)
Wrestling
Volleyball
Basketball
Martial Arts (Taekwondo, Judo and Karate)

[Deleted]

Handball and football really. Even though we utterly suck at football. Honestly, ever since we won in Mexico in '92 we've been living in this bubble where we think we are the bees knees at football, when in all honesty - we suck. *Sigh*

Include country.... You could be speaking about Bangladesh, Cayman Islands or France for all we know.

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.

Speedway is probably more concentrated to the southern parts of Sweden, but it draws the third-most attendance out of all sports. Also, in southern Sweden, hockey is in no way more popular than football. Not many young people play it, while basically every kid (boy and girl) plays football when they are young.

[Bluesftw]

depends which sportsman is most succesfull, then sudendly entire nation becomes "i was fan of this sport since the day i was born"...

[aztr0]

Football, college football.
Basketball, college basketball.

[Vargur]

Europe

1. Football.

/end

Wish it were Formula 1, Superbike, Snooker, Curling or golf though...

[Zelk]

UK
1.Football (soccer)
2. Rugby Union
3. Cricket
4. Rugby League
5. Swimming
6.Tennis

[Deleted]

France, based on the number of licenced players:
1. football
2. tennis
3. judo/ju-jitsu
4. basketball
5. handball
6. rugby

Now for TV/live audience, things are a bit different, as cycling gets a lot of interest for instance.

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.