RealGM

From 2007 to 2014 I lived in Taiwan for all but one year, the year I spent in Shanghai.

In Taiwan, baseball was the most popular sport overall, but I believe that every five or ten years basketball was gaining ground. Basketball was clearly the second-most popular, and just a matter of time before it was most popular when you looked at the demographics. It was probably already 50/50 in terms of fandom among the 25-and-under crowd. It was just the "dad" generation where it was like 90/10 in favor of baseball.

I used to go to a middle school every morning to shoot baskets. I remember seeing the school's baseball team practicing, and the majority of the team was taller than me - I'm about 5'10''. Yes, it's anecdotal, but that had to be a microcosm of why we see Taiwanese players in MLB, but none yet in the NBA: all the prestige and resources (and, therefore, talent) were going into baseball.

Coincidentally, there were two twin brothers who were about 6'2'' or 6'3'' on the baseball team. One of them, after occasionally getting annihilated by me in one on one over the course of a month or two, decided to quit baseball and play basketball. I'd like to think that my killer jumpshot was his inspiration.

In China, the NBA was very visible and very popular, but I literally only saw one game of pick-up in the year I was there, whereas in Taiwan, public courts, with games going on, were all over the place. I couldn't really say where basketball ranked in China, other than to say that badminton is astonishingly popular there.

PS Just to be clear, I mean they had like celebrity badminton players in China. It's that popular.

PPS I'm pretty sure Jeremy Lin was more of an inspiration than my jumpshot, but I know I had something to do with it.

El Hespiritu wrote:Catalonia:

-FCBarcelona (Més que un sport)
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-Football
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-Motorcycling
-Basketball (Thanks Tolliver for Badalona -bball is sorta religion in that small town- and a bit Manresa or it would be even worse)

mistake

in netherlands is totally not popular its not even on the radar
meaning its not in the top 10 sports woman or men even korfball ( a sort of netball) is more popular here .
I looked it up how many people play it in a team and the dutch basketball federation is number 23 if you rank the sport federations by number of members after the shooting federation ( number 22) . Yes shooting like clay pigeon shooting

That is sad ( if you like basketball and want 2 see more people follow it) because we have the infrastructure and we are the tallest nation on earth . That is advantage number 1 if you want 2 play basketball.

But i think its also that the basketball that is shown on television is not recognizable. We have some highlights of games on sunday for 4 minutes on television and if people start to follow the sport. The NBA is i think to alien to somebody from the netherlands meaning rules like the draft, no relagation ( so why you need to follow a team if they cant loose on the end of season) , salary cap etc etc. So promoting the european basketball is i think the way to get it more popular and off course winning. If we had by some miracle a national team that went to the olympics etc etc. After that you will see the growed but sadly i dont think that will happen

Well, if US sports are something like this:
1. NFL
2. MLB
3. NBA
4. NHL

5. Nascar

6. MLS

Then here in Italy football is like all four major leagues put together, then come F1 and MotoGP playing the Nascar role, and only after that basketball as the MLS, with tennis and women's volleyball close behind.

No one cares about it. You do see a lot more kids wearing Curry and Durant jerseys though. NBA fashion is big though, people love wearing jerseys

In India, popularity wise -
1.Cricket
2.Soccer(soccer is huge in cities and it's becoming lot more popular these days)
3.Badminton (became popular in recent years)
4.Kabaddi
5.Any sport in which an Indian athlete is doing well lol

NBA seems to be gaining some popularity among youth in big cities but still it's popularity is very minor when compared to say something like soccer.

In my country:

Football (soccer)
Tennis
Basketball
Waterpolo
Voleyball
Handball

In city where i live:

Football (soccer)
Martial Arts (boxing, kikboxing, MMA, karate, judo, taekwondo)
Handball
Voleyball
Basketball
Athletics
Cycling

In spain basketball is 2nd after soccer. Still I think there's a lot of people who are NBA fans more than ACB/Fiba fans.

When I lived in New Zealand it was:

1. Rugby
2. Cricket
3. Soccer
4. Basketball

Gap between Rugby and Cricket being absolutely massive. But basketball was gaining a lot of steam, NBA interest was higher in New Zealand than the part of Canada I was living in before I moved to New Zealand. I wouldn't be surprised if by now soccer has been overtaken by basketball.

As a cycling fan I'm surprised Spaniards and Italians don't have cycling on their list.

I'm Australia pick up basketball is hugely popular, possibly more so than any other sport.
However it does quite dismally when looking at organised sports:
1. Aussie rules football
2. Cricket
3. Rugby league
4. Motorsport
5. Tennis
6. Rugby Union
7. Soccer (possibly higher if looking at participation)
8. Basketball
9. Netball (beats basketball in participation)
10. Athletics
11. Cycling
12. NFL

In Japan, basketball is played professionally, but the teams are trash. The favorite sports are: soccer, swimming, volley ball, and martial arts.

In Fraince, it's football and tennis and volleyball

And in Mexico it's futbol, boxing, and rodeo

Second most popular sport in Greece. It should arguably be the most popular sport since we are way better at basketball than we are at football.

In Australia (at least since i last posted) i feel basketball has gotten a lot more popular.

Qld and NSW:
1. Rugby League
2a. AFL
2b. football/soccer
3. Cricket (kind of)
4. Rugby Union
5. Basketball

3-5 is interchangable and 2 is dependant on who is better at the time (at the moment, the lions are doing really well and the roar are coming off their worst season ever).

Rest of the country:
1. AFL
2. Football/Soccer (especially in victoria, its really popular surprisingly enough)
3. Cricket
4a. Basketball
4b. Rugby League (outside of Melbourne where they have the storm at least)
5. Rugby Union

Basketball will probably surpass rugby union overall in the coming years (especially if the wallabies do really badly at the world cup which i suspect they will, not expecting them to get past the first round) with players like Simmons getting a lot of eyes on the NBA and the NBL in its strongest position since the 90's. Hopefully with an expansion into Tasmania (Southern Huskies next) and maybe some renovations of arenas and new arenas being built (Brisbane Live down the road and i think sydney is getting a new one as well) they could challenge cricket (though cricket is a lot more ingrained in the national identity).

Queensland / NSW
1. Rugby League
2. Cricket
3. Soccer
4. Aussie Rules
5. Rugby Union
6. Tennis
7. Basketball

Victoria / South & Western Australia
1. Aussie Rules
(Is there other sports)

All of Australia
1. Aussie Rules
2. Cricket
3. Soccer
4. Rugby League
5. Rugby Union
6. Tennis
7. Basketball

Possibly other sports.
The rankings are guesses.

Cricket is more loved by the older generation, soccer by the younger.
Tennis might beat Rugby Union as it's played all over Australia, but my guess is Basketball is solidly 7th. Maybe even lower if I've forgotten a sport.

I would say in India:

1) cricket
2) soccer
3) tennis
4) field hockey
5) badminton
6) maybe basketball

Germany:

1. Football (soccer)
[gigantic gap]
2A. Various winter sports (biathlon, skiing, ski jumping etc.)
2B. Handball
3. Formula 1
[another big gap]
4. Tennis
5. Various sports including basketball

This is just for watching, though. Amongst the millenial demographic, NBA is very well known and in contention for 2nd place. Ask anyone over 35 and they couldn't even tell you who LeBron James is.

However, if you take the number of people actually playing the sport into account, basketball drops dramatically.

Here one statistic about the overall popularity, not distinguishing between watching it on TV or being in a club and playing ball yourself:

Denmark:
Based on active members: (medlemmer = members)

1. Fodbold/football = 329.922 medlemmer
2. Gymnastik/gymnastics = 200.490 medlemmer
3. Svømning/swimming = 189.977 medlemmer
4. Golf = 148.135 medlemmer
5. Håndbold/handball = 104.609 medlemmer
6. Badminton = 92.307 medlemmer
7. Ridning/horse riding = 64.384 medlemmer
8. Tennis = 58.146 medlemmer
9. Sejlads/Sailing = 52.199 medlemmer
10. Atletik/athletics = 39.684 medlemmer
11. Cykling/cycling = 31.686 medlemmer
...
16. Basketball = 14.276 medlemmer

Based on the general interest in a sport and not active members in the sport, i'll think it's more like this:

1. Football
.
.
2. Handball
3. Cycling
4. Badminton
5. Tennis
6. Motorsport
.
7-11 in no order:
Swimming
Basketball
American Football
Athletics
Skisport/skiing
.
12/13. Boxing, MMA
14. Darts

For me:
1. Football
.
2. Basketball
3. MMA/UFC
4. Cycling
5. Boxing
.
6. Skiing
7. Handball
8. Darts
.
.
9. Tennis
10. Badminton

kulo wrote:In Australia

AFL
AFL
AFL
NFL
Cricket
Soccer
Basketball.

(Soccer could be higher, but I couldn't give a **** lol)

Sucks ass.

I'm from Melbourne, so I agree mostly but...no NRL?