Yes it's not in the top tier. The Europa of sports.
Shohei Ohtani - the most talented athlete ever?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
It is a minor sport though:
Not only the ones you just said, but sports like Cricket, Cycling, Athletics, Horse Racing, American Football, Table Tennis, Badminton are also much larger sports. The latter two partly because of its gigantic following in Asia.
Not really. Baseball bats, Tennis racquets, cricket bats, all have elements of technology advances that see different generations play somewhat different sports.
The people at the top of those sports are all incredible sports people. But I’d not have the term ‘athelete’ universally added. Tennis gets close as an athletic endeavour, as do other racquet sports. Bat sports, less so.
Wouldn’t argue with anyone that disagrees, but I draw some lines for ease of purpose.
Not sure if I agree with all of these, but even when adding all of them baseball is still a top 20 sport, which I don't think makes it very minor.
Another aspect that I failed to consider is how many tickets gets sold on a regular basis (as well as regular TV watching). I know a lot of sports lunatics all over the world, but I don't think I've ever met someone who watches swimming or running (for instance) outside of the Olympics. Nor do they read swimming or running news. There are plenty of technically big sports, but they don't have a very large and dedicated fanbase.
But every sport is minor compared to football anyways. Nothing comes close.
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Really? Admittedly running events are wrapped up into Atheltics as a whole, but they regularly sell out 15,000-70,000 arenas weekly/fortnightly across the season. Half a million people will watch the Swimming World Championships in person.
Nothing compared to a whole Baseball season, but there’s plenty of people watching it. Though to be fair I’m not surprised, I don’t know anyone that watches Baseball. Just where you’re based I suppose.
Cycling is the one that always shocks me. Across the TdF, Giro and Vuelta, 27m will spectate across only 9 weeks.
Now that surprises me! I used to have access to a lot of sports channels, but I can't ever remember seeing swimming on any channel.
As for running, whenever I see a big event on TV the stadium usually looks mostly empty.
Yeah, cycling is HUGE in Europe at least. It's also one of the few sports that I've never understood the appeal of.
I actually quite like baseball now that I think about it
I hardly ever watch it and couldn't name a single player apart from Ohtani, but I think it's kind of fun to watch. Copious amount of food and beer is a must though! You should look and feel like the players when game is done.He's not even the most talented baseball player ever. Baseball has fallen far down the peaking order in American sports. It doesn't draw the best American athletes like it used to. Ohtani is dominanting a week era
Efran Bata Reyes is the goat
I don’t think it’s bigger than NFL or Basketball in the US
Other than that you make a good case for it not being a major sport really
Kelly Slater won the World Surf League championship 11 times and has 56 Championship Tour victories. This is a sport that can kill you. He’s the greatest surfer of all time.
Tony Hawk won 73 pro competitions and placed 2nd in 19 others. He invented over 100 skateboarding tricks.
Hard to define what an athlete truly means, but both of these guys dominated a sport for longer ham anyone else has, their sports are insanely dangerous, and require strength, dexterity, agility, aggression, and fearlessness.
Ohtani can throw and hit a baseball.
Tony Hawk won 73 pro competitions and placed 2nd in 19 others. He invented over 100 skateboarding tricks.
Hard to define what an athlete truly means, but both of these guys dominated a sport for longer ham anyone else has, their sports are insanely dangerous, and require strength, dexterity, agility, aggression, and fearlessness.
Ohtani can throw and hit a baseball.
even if it's their third sport instead of their second it's still hugely popular. And then you have to consider that until the turn of the century or so, it was bigger than the NFL, too
I mean if baseball isn't a major sport then basketball is the *only* major sport in NA, if that. And basically depending on type of exposure major sports would mean soccer, then either basketball, OR table tennis and maybe cricket(idk. India?)
Yeah it’s popular in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan and a bunch of smaller countries
I wouldn’t call it a major sport though, maybe minor is too harsh but it’s not one of the big ones
I think volleyball is a good example of the opposite of baseball. It has an incredible spread, but I'm not sure if it's the most popular sport in any country?
Looking at the top 20 nations (right now) you got so much different representation: USA, Canada, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Slovenia, France, Italy etc. Pretty much every corner of the globe apart from sub-Saharan Africa and Australia has representation.
Looking at the top 20 nations (right now) you got so much different representation: USA, Canada, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Slovenia, France, Italy etc. Pretty much every corner of the globe apart from sub-Saharan Africa and Australia has representation.
Baseball is a pastime. I'll accept calling it a sport, but calling it's participants athletic is pushing it.
But again, what are the big ones then? Other than soccer. By following it's only really beaten by soccer, basketball, and maybe F1 racing, table tennis and cricket. Likely beats out american football when you take Japan into account. By participation, it's maybe beaten also by long distance running? Idk. It's one of the most followed AND most played sports in the world
your wife: “oh, amol, thank you. that was the best dicking i ever did get.”
or
your wife: “thank you for the intercourse, amol. i have had way better. and bigger. but i appreciate your efforts.”
For me it would be soccer, cricket, tennis and hockey.. I don’t know much about F1 but I don’t think it’s up there with those for number of fans
the big American ones don’t have the global participation levels of those sports, so they sit underneath the top some place for me at least
Going by participation stuff like catch and hide and seek beat anything bar football.
Hockey? Cricket? Really?
Tier 0 - unique
- Football
Tier 1 - big following, big spread
- Tennis
- Volleyball
- Basketball
- Golf
Tier 2 - big following, limited spread
- Cricket
- Field hockey
- Table tennis
- Baseball
- Rugby
- American Football
- Football
Tier 1 - big following, big spread
- Tennis
- Volleyball
- Basketball
- Golf
Tier 2 - big following, limited spread
- Cricket
- Field hockey
- Table tennis
- Baseball
- Rugby
- American Football
I bet the average person on earth that sleeps is slimmer than the average person that plays baseball.
@Scandi Red are you a volleyball influencer or something?
Nice nice. You clearly saw that before I deleted it because I think I misread the intention of your post but I appreciate your effort nonetheless
Nah, I'm just a volleyball freak. There is something about those amazonian women jumping around...
Joking aside, I watched a lot of volleyball in the Olympics and found it very interesting. Volleyball and sports climbing (lead and boulder) were the highlights for me!
yeah they have many multiples more people following them than baseball
Thanks to India. So by that reasoning the major men's sports would be football, basketball, cricket, table tennis + whatever other sports are huge in China/India
Golf? Rich persons sport with great marketing, cos loads of money behind it.
Also the worst live spectator sport on the planet. Turn based hitting of a ball, with every single shot having controlled variables. One tournament a year with too much wind and they all turn into fannies.
It’s F1 with a worse environmental cost.
With all that said, I love playing it. A bag full of forgiving cheat-clubs, hit it straight, bop about for three hours, score 80-85, few birdies and pars, couple of beers, no phones. Solid afternoon out.
even if you remove the entire population of India from the total number of cricket fans, it's still more than the number of baseball fans
but I do agree that the biggest sports are the ones with the most fans (as well as participants)
It consistently makes the top 10 in terms of global viewership. And unlike cricket and baseball I don't think the viewership numbers are skewed because of a handful of countries. Hence it makes it makes it to tier 1, even though it's a rich person's sport.
If your sport can award you a 10 year $700m contract, it’s not a ‘minor sport’.
Yeah fair go. Just had a rant about golf for no real reason. It’s a weird one though. It’s such a boring watch.
I went to the Ryder Cup and that was a riot. Mainly because of all the Guinness, but the team element definitely made it more interesting. One bloke hitting a ball, competing against someone that is half a mile away, just doesn’t do it for me.
Now that you say it they even explicitly call it major league baseball.
I agree completely. I hate pretty much everything about golf. But I got to admit that it's fun to play...
Baseball is definitely a minor sport, despite its adoration in Baseball nations . The vast majority of sports fans would have no idea how long a game lasts, if being caught leaves you out the whole game, how many times you can hit, what base stealing is about, I could go on. You can’t even casually pick up on the second stage basics of it.
Pitch, catch, strikes and home runs are all the average sports fans will know about it, outside of fans of the sport.
So what? The average referee couldn't tell what is and what isn't a handball in football.
Usain Bolt. We'll never see anything like that again.
Baseball doesn’t matter. It’s basically darts with a bit of running around.
If that's the case - if he's like a batsman averaging 55 and 24 or below as a bowler, he's clearly an insane player. Imran was a great fast bowler who became a very good batsman and vice versa for Sobers. Neither of them were amazing in both aspects of the game.
But I agree with @Pogue Mahone. It's a minority sport like cricket (yeah but there's a billion people in India) for that bloke to be regarded as the greatest otherwise the likes of Janghir Khan would always be in the conversation.
Appreciate your comment is a throwaway joke, but treating it sincerely;
Baseball has no global unifier that brings in casual sports fans. In France, Australia and England, even the most casual sports watchers will just inherit the scoring system of tennis, for example. They’ll know the insanity of deuce and what a double fault is. Not just understand that tennis is two folks hitting a ball over a net inside the lines.
Adam Peaty, Mo Farah, Johnathan Edwards, et al, get wrapped into the Olympics and their sports are platformed and sent into peoples homes unbidden. Baseball has none of that.
Shit, Curling as part of the Winter Olympics sees everyone know what the sticks are for.
Baseball doesn't really extend beyond its own fan base. Outside of countries that it’s popular. To that very silly qualifier, it’s a minor sport. Albeit a major one for anyone that watches it.