It is one of the toughest jobs in the world to choose most popular sports in the world. Like films, every sport has its own fan-following and audience. Nobody can exclaim it outright that which sport is more exciting and which one is not. There are around 200 countries in the world and each one of them has their own preference and choice.
Top 10 Most Popular Sports in the World
For instance; Cricket is hugely popular in the Commonwealth countries but gentleman’s game is not that much popular elsewhere. Honestly speaking, Cricket is anonymous to more than the half of Europe. But it has got a lot of fans in the United Kingdom (UK).
Similarly, professional free-style wrestling is a famous sport in the United States (US), especially the way World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has evolved over the last four decades, but somehow Wrestling hasn’t got that much recognition in other countries. This justifies the fact that a sport might be heart throbbing in one nation but completely unknown in another country.
1) Football: This 90-minute game is a culture, tradition or more than that. The craziness of fans is absolutely mesmerizing. Be it Messi or Pelle or even Rooney, fans love to watch their idols play live. Fans and football enthusiasts scream, fight or do everything possible to support their teams. This is what football is all about. The game might end in 90 minutes but the euphoria continues. Strength, skill and ability to handle pressures are the three major ingredients that make a successful football player. The popularity of football can be gauged from the fact that most nations participate in the FIFA World Cup these days.
2) Wrestling: This breath taking sport is associated with every country in some form or other. Especially in countries like Japan, China, Taiwan and India, wrestling as a game has always been there but it is only the late 1970s era that WWE has almost become synonymous with this sport. No doubt, Americans popularized it in a much more professional and fabulous manner. Certainly, WWE is one of the leading sports in the world and has a huge fan-base all across the globe.
3) Basketball: It’s a very unusual game as you may never know that which team will win or lose even when a few seconds of play remaining. You need to have enough patience, ability to dribble and jump a few centimeters high to reach up to the basket. Michael Jordan is the biggest inspiration for all who want to excel in this game. Playing basketball can be an amusing exercise as well.
4) Running: When it comes to running for glory of the nation, this sport has its own charms. The biggest lesson that running will taught you is to keep fighting against all odds and stay determined irrespective of where the life takes you. In fact, the element of running is inside every sport but running on the race track and touching the finish zone with your own leg is just amazing experience. Usain Bolt is the leading name from this sport. Running is one of the important games included in Olympics ever since this mega sporting event was initiated.
5) Swimming: Of all sports, swimming is considered as an exciting and safe sport. You need to have enormous amount of strength and ability to hold your breath for quite a long time deep under the water to become successful in this sport. Swimming is a good form of exercise as well. It involves all your muscle to function equally and improves your blood circulation. In other words, it feels really good to fighting against water. How many of you dare to do that?
6) Baseball: Some people call it American’s version of cricket, but it won’t be correct to do so. In fact, Baseball has completely overshadowed cricket in the USA. Though, the credit for popularizing the game of baseball in the US goes to a UK-born American sports Journalist Henry Chadwick. He simplified the rules of baseball and made it hugely popular all across the nation. In baseball, you have to face bowl delivered to you at a pace around 100 mph, unless you are mentally alert and powerful enough to hit the ball outside the boundary rope, you may end up getting caught out.
7) Tennis: There is hardly any individual sport that matters as much as Tennis. But you have to play consistently well in all three rounds to beat your opponents. More importantly, this game is favorable to both male and female athletes. You have lots of female tennis stars such as Martina Hingis, Sania Mirza, Venus Williams, Steffi Graph and others. Similarly we have many male tennis stars also such as Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and others. A strong arm and fabulous footwork is all that matters in this beautiful game.
8) Cricket: This is the sport that has taken the form of a religion in many countries. Especially in India, the game is hugely admired, followed and is played on the streets by people of all age-groups. People don’t mind sticking on to their TV sets for long hours while watching Cricket. This star studded sport has evolved manifold over the last 4 decades. Some big names from cricket are Don Bradman, Sunil Gavaskar, Sir Richard Hadlee, Sachin Tendulkar and many others.
9) Hockey: Considered as the national sport of India, Hockey has always been associated with the glory of the land. But the game is also hugely popular in many other countries including Australia, Germany, Netherlands, England, etc. In India, Major Dhyan Chand is always revered as the father figure and is popularly known as ‘the Wizard’ for his extraordinary skills of scoring goals at big matches. He won 3 Olympics Gold Medals in his career. India’s current rank in Men’s Field Hockey is 6.
10) Golf: This history of golf can be traced back to 15th century, when the rudimentary form of this game was played in Scotland. Golfers all across the world participate in this exciting contest. Though, golf is mostly considered as individual sports but at the end if the golfer wins it for his country. As of now, this is the USA dominated game because the nation has around 17670 golf courses followed by the UK’s 2750. Jyoti Randhwa, Arjun Atwal and Jeev Milkha Singh are the famous Golfers from India.
Tags: Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, Football, Golf, Hockey, Popular Sports, Running, Sport, Sports, Swimming, Tennis, Top 10, World, Wrestling
