Favourite Non American Sport

[Thorn]

As an Aussie, I LOVE sport. So I decided I might make a poll on people's favourite sports, but if everyone were to say. "NFL","Baseball" and "Basketball" (sports not played in Australia), then i'd get nothing out of this poll.

So i've chosen a select few, universal sports which I assume all of you know of and perhaps have played.

[DK]

For one thing, the number of Americans and Rest of World are pretty even here, maybe even the Americans are the Minority. Secondly, they are played in other countries, just not to the same scale of in America, except for Baseball which is supposed to be pretty damn popular in Japan. And why you decided to just cut out half of the demographic of the forum from answering just because you don't give a crap about their favourite sport is beyond me, but whatever.

As for the poll, Cricket is my favourite sport of all. So yeah.

[Mo-Nercy]

Basketball is a pretty popular national sport in Australia. Yay Kings!

And I'm sure everyone that's heard of Rugby Union would have heard about Rugby League too, so I don't know why you wouldn't put that up as well. If anything NRL is MORE popular as a spectator sport in Australia than ARU. Predominantly in NSW and QLD.

And let's face it. Number of NFL fans in America > Population of Australia.

But yeah, I'd go Rugby League if it was there. Since it's not...I vote nothing.

[Rocket Edge]

Erm, i live in ireland, but whatever. I enjoy soccer the most.

[Arrianna]

I went with golf because I have enjoyed it the few times I've played it... but if you're talking about watching I prefer to watch rugby.

[Shoeberto]

Competitive cybergaming was also not included in the list and that's another nitpicky thing because you're totally destroying the demographic of sport-hatin' nerds on this board!

[Thorn]

Basketball is a pretty popular national sport in Australia. Yay Kings!

I've seen one basketball game on TV and that was on SBS on sunday morning.

I didn't put Rugbyleague because thats mainly played in England, New Zealand in.


For one thing, the number of Americans and Rest of World are pretty even here, maybe even the Americans are the Minority. Secondly, they are played in other countries, just not to the same scale of in America, except for Baseball which is supposed to be pretty damn popular in Japan. And why you decided to just cut out half of the demographic of the forum from answering just because you don't give a crap about their favourite sport is beyond me, but whatever.

As for the poll, Cricket is my favourite sport of all. So yeah.

I'm aware that Baseball and Basketball arent played only in USA but apart from Japan (apparently) few other nations would air it prime time on TV.

But i'm glad you like Cricket, which is my favourite.

[Denmark]

basketball is of course played in australia. otherwise, where would we have gotten luke schenscher and andrew bogut? just to name two that i remember.

and what about australian football? and also, very few people even know how to play cricket in the US, let alone actually play it, so your claim that it is a "universal" sport is flawed. curling would have been a better choice. and the amount of rugby played is also not as high here as it is in other parts of the world. "universal" sports? hardly.

anyway. soccer is godly. so yeah.

[Resha]

Soccer (FOOTBALL, YEEH!) and cricket. :)

[edczxcvbnm]

Cricket and Rugby are not universal sports.

[Heath]

Football is my favourite both to play and to watch. I do love football. Cricket can also be a lot of fun to play, but I really can't watch it.


Cricket and Rugby are not universal sports.

They're played in more countries than you'd think, really. Possibly more universal than baseball.

Please don't double-post, use the edit/delete button instead.

~Void

[Psydekick]

Thats hard because i like all of them apart from Rugby Union and Golf, i said footie beacuase you can play it all year round:spin:

[edczxcvbnm]

Cricket and Rugby are not universal sports.

They're played in more countries than you'd think, really. Possibly more universal than baseball.

That doesn't make them universal. Rugby...maybe. Cricket...NO. That is played mainly in former countries controlled by England(South America, Australia and so on) or countries with a history of English influence.

[Heath]

Cricket and Rugby are not universal sports.

They're played in more countries than you'd think, really. Possibly more universal than baseball.

That doesn't make them universal. Rugby...maybe. Cricket...NO. That is played mainly in former countries controlled by England(South America, Australia and so on) or countries with a history of English influence.

Well, naturally, that's how the sport spread. Still a large number of countries are at least members of the International Cricket Council (the USA and Canada are both associate members of). Still, perhaps cricket isn't universal like you said, but it is played across the world more than you'd think.

[edczxcvbnm]

The US and Canada is on some sort of cricket consol? I am willing to be that 99.9999999999999993% of the population things cricket is an English form of Baseball. It is not a universal sport and has been around long enough to gain enough appeal to become one. It isn't going to happen. Same thing with baseball. Baseball is played in the Americas mainly. Lots of countries but not a universal sport.

[Flea]

I voted for football (soccer).

I'm glad that the option for it, at least had football in brackets. I cannot stand seeing it being referred to as soccer.. :)

But after spending a year in Australia, I got a bigger appreciation for cricket, as well as Rugby Union and Rugby League.

[BardTard]

What? No Blitzball? :(

[Faris]

Football/Soccer! *kicks*

[Kirobaito]

Out of those five, tennis.

When you consider the World Baseball Classic consisted of The USA, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, The Netherlands, Italy, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, and Australia, that seems pretty universal. At least one team for every continent, sans Antarctica, but everyone knows the Penguins would kill everyone else.

[edczxcvbnm]

I knew there were Asian Teams in there but I didn't know how many. I would say baseball is mainly an Americas, Asian sport more than anything. I don't really think it is universal because a few countries from the other half of the world decided to join in. It was removed from the olympics on top of that.

[Venom]

I hate ALL sports.

[Peegee]

You forgot fencing.

[Thorn]

basketball is of course played in australia. otherwise, where would we have gotten luke schenscher and andrew bogut? just to name two that i remember.

and what about australian football? and also, very few people even know how to play cricket in the US, let alone actually play it, so your claim that it is a "universal" sport is flawed. curling would have been a better choice. and the amount of rugby played is also not as high here as it is in other parts of the world. "universal" sports? hardly.

anyway. soccer is godly. so yeah.

Cricket is one of the most played sports in the world.

-India
-England
-New Zealand
-Pakistan
-Bangladesh
-Zimbabwe
-Sri Lanka
-Australia
-South Africa
-West Indies

And Scotland and Ireland also play, but it's not very big there.


and what about australian football

Why would I post the top sport of a country with 20'000'000 population? I'm guessing that like 1/50th of this forum (probally less) has even heard of AFL (Australian football league) so it'd be pointless.


basketball is of course played in australia. otherwise, where would we have gotten luke schenscher and andrew bogut? just to name two that i remember.

Yeh we play it, but we dont air it on TV. This argument has already been made above.


Out of those five, tennis.

When you consider the World Baseball Classic consisted of The USA, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, The Netherlands, Italy, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, and Australia, that seems pretty universal. At least one team for every continent, sans Antarctica, but everyone knows the Penguins would kill everyone else.

Gee you picked some real well known countries there.

THe reason that some sports have not been chosen, is because they do not have a strong competition in their country. Ok yeh, Australia has Basbeall and basketball. But I've only ever seen one Basketball game and no baseball games in my 16 years of life.

Those countries might play Baseball, but I doubt it gets on TV.

[Leeza]

Why is this still in GC? *moves to The Lounge*

Golf is the only sport I play. :cat:

[Nominus Experse]

Football, and not that complete and utter <img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"> they call the NFL...

And I agree with Pureghetto, you ought to have included fencing...

[Zeromus_X]

I don't really care for sports; but tennis has always intrigued me.

Soccer? Oh, yes, Football. Also a popular sport worldwide.

[*ETERNAL FANTASY*]

dont really follow cricket...ill go for soccer and tennis:D

[edczxcvbnm]

basketball is of course played in australia. otherwise, where would we have gotten luke schenscher and andrew bogut? just to name two that i remember.

and what about australian football? and also, very few people even know how to play cricket in the US, let alone actually play it, so your claim that it is a "universal" sport is flawed. curling would have been a better choice. and the amount of rugby played is also not as high here as it is in other parts of the world. "universal" sports? hardly.

anyway. soccer is godly. so yeah.

Cricket is one of the most played sports in the world.

-India
-England
-New Zealand
-Pakistan
-Bangladesh
-Zimbabwe
-Sri Lanka
-Australia
-South Africa

And Scotland and Ireland also play, but it's not very big there.


and what about australian football

Why would I post the top sport of a country with 20'000'000 population? I'm guessing that like 1/50th of this forum (probally less) has even heard of AFL (Australian football league) so it'd be pointless.


basketball is of course played in australia. otherwise, where would we have gotten luke schenscher and andrew bogut? just to name two that i remember.

Yeh we play it, but we dont air it on TV. This argument has already been made above.


Out of those five, tennis.

When you consider the World Baseball Classic consisted of The USA, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, The Netherlands, Italy, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, and Australia, that seems pretty universal. At least one team for every continent, sans Antarctica, but everyone knows the Penguins would kill everyone else.

Gee you picked some real well known countries there.

THe reason that some sports have not been chosen, is because they do not have a strong competition in their country. Ok yeh, Australia has Basbeall and basketball. But I've only ever seen one Basketball game and no baseball games in my 16 years of life.

Those countries might play Baseball, but I doubt it gets on TV.

All of those places you listed where former English Colonies or had very strong ties to England as I said. It is not a popular world sport it is still just an English sport. Nice try.

As for baseball the countries he choose. All of the Americas(besides Canada) follows baseball very well as well as Japan. I am not so sure about the other asian countries or the europian ones he named though.

You convinced me about cricket as much others have convinced you of baseball. Neither are world universal sports and probably NEVER will be.

[Resha]

Well, actually, the USA plays cricket too. They take part in the World Cup and all; they're new to it, so they're not all that good, but getting better. Considering that at least one country from many continents (the only one I can't think of having a representative at the Cricket WC besides Antartica is South America), I'd say cricket is a pretty universal sport.

[Kirobaito]

basketball is of course played in australia. otherwise, where would we have gotten luke schenscher and andrew bogut? just to name two that i remember.

and what about australian football? and also, very few people even know how to play cricket in the US, let alone actually play it, so your claim that it is a "universal" sport is flawed. curling would have been a better choice. and the amount of rugby played is also not as high here as it is in other parts of the world. "universal" sports? hardly.

anyway. soccer is godly. so yeah.

Cricket is one of the most played sports in the world.

-India
-England
-New Zealand
-Pakistan
-Bangladesh
-Zimbabwe
-Sri Lanka
-Australia
-South Africa

And Scotland and Ireland also play, but it's not very big there.


and what about australian football

Why would I post the top sport of a country with 20'000'000 population? I'm guessing that like 1/50th of this forum (probally less) has even heard of AFL (Australian football league) so it'd be pointless.


basketball is of course played in australia. otherwise, where would we have gotten luke schenscher and andrew bogut? just to name two that i remember.

Yeh we play it, but we dont air it on TV. This argument has already been made above.


Out of those five, tennis.

When you consider the World Baseball Classic consisted of The USA, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, The Netherlands, Italy, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, and Australia, that seems pretty universal. At least one team for every continent, sans Antarctica, but everyone knows the Penguins would kill everyone else.

Gee you picked some real well known countries there.

THe reason that some sports have not been chosen, is because they do not have a strong competition in their country. Ok yeh, Australia has Basbeall and basketball. But I've only ever seen one Basketball game and no baseball games in my 16 years of life.

Those countries might play Baseball, but I doubt it gets on TV.

All of those places you listed where former English Colonies or had very strong ties to England as I said. It is not a popular world sport it is still just an English sport. Nice try.

As for baseball the countries he choose. All of the Americas(besides Canada) follows baseball very well as well as Japan. I am not so sure about the other asian countries or the europian ones he named though.

You convinced me about cricket as much others have convinced you of baseball. Neither are world universal sports and probably NEVER will be.
Even Canada is into baseball a bit. They've got an MLB team (though it doesn't get great attendance anymore, though it once did), used to have two, and there have been some pretty good players to come out of Canada - Larry Walker, Jason Bay, Rich Harden, to name three.

Italy, to be entirely honest, was comprised mostly of Italian-Americans. The Dutch team included all Dutch colonies, which is why Andruw Jones of Curacao played.

The South African team was South Africans and the Australian team was Australians. Taiwan and Korea are just about as big into baseball as Japan is.

[Griff]

As a Canadian, I find the lack of the 4 sports created by Canadians disappointing. (Hockey, Lacrosse, Curling, and Basketball, for those not in the know)

[Madame Adequate]

I don't think it's really accurate to say sports are so restricted to nations. Yes, Cricket and Soccer are really big in England, whilst Football and Baseball are big in the US, but that doesn't mean there aren't fans of them in the other nations, as has been pointed out in this thread.

Of those five? Tennis or golf. Overall? Football and Hockey.

[Thorn]

Well i'm not just interested in seeing...

Nfl -20
Baseball -12
Basketball -11
Soccer (football) - 2
Rugby - 1
Cricket -1

Perhaps basketball and cricket are more universal than I thought. But there's no <img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif">en way i'm putting NFL up there.

[Mo-Nercy]

I've seen one basketball game on TV and that was on SBS on sunday morning.

I didn't put Rugbyleague because thats mainly played in England, New Zealand in.
You must not on the East Coast because you have no idea just how little most sports fans in NSW or QLD would care about rugby when they could switch on to a game of league.

These days League and Union are considered equals. The former is a game where the backs can really set up some great worked plays given the speed of the play-the-ball whereas the latter is closer to being a game of endurance, where the forwards have to perform so that the possession is kept and field position is gained. There was a time where League was more or less a dying ground for struggling Union players but these days are gone. Players are now more often than not, choosing to stay in League rather than be poached away to play Union, even though League traditionally pays a lot less.

I'm pretty sure that League hasn't hit it too big in nations other than Australia, England, France and NZ. But I can't bee 100% sure. So I'm with you when you say Rugby is closer to being a universal sport.



If you did make a poll with the aforementioned sports, you'd probably see football topping it (soccer, that is).

And maybe you should open your arms to NFL. You may actually like it. We only get to see the Superbowl. But we do get it live. 4am local time. xD

[Kuzotz]

Football, and not that complete and utter <img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"> they call the NFL...

And I agree with Pureghetto, you ought to have included fencing...
American football owns you...

You just suck because you can't read the plays

[Thorn]

Football, and not that complete and utter <img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"><img src="/xxx.gif"> they call the NFL...

And I agree with Pureghetto, you ought to have included fencing...
American football owns you...

You just suck because you can't read the plays

NFL is a crap, slow paced sport. They wear so much protective gear that it's embaressing. I had madden 2000, that was fun. But I cant stand to watch it on cable, it bores me to death.

Mo-Mercy i'm very aware of how popular league is in Australia, but I doubt this forum would care much for popular Australian sports. If perhaps a couple more countries participated in NRL. Then i'd have put it up for sure.

Btw I refer to Football as soccer so that I don't confuse the majority of this forum. Even though it pains me to do so.