Sporting isolation
Reading Delmer’s comment about the Ashes reinforced to me how insular Australia and the United States are when it comes to sport.
The reality is that most countries of the world are soccer mad. It’s played everywhere and is the main spectator sport in most countries as well. The only places where it isn’t the most popular sport, that I can think of, are Australia, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, India, Pakistan, Ireland and Wales.
The popular games here are Australian Rules football, which is played nowhere else, Rugby League, which is played almost nowhere else, Rugby Union and cricket.
Rugby is genuinely international, but enjoys strong support in only a handful of countries, and cricket is confined to the former British Empire.
The Americans play and watch sports which are even less global. Ice hockey and gridiron are barely known outside North America. Basketball has travelled pretty well and baseball a little, but neither is huge outside the USA.
Delmer’s observation about the English losing at the games they invented is a good one. We’re seeing that trend change though, with the cricket most recently and the Rugby World Cup before it. They lost a soccer match to Northern Ireland last week, so it’s not all rosy.
It puzzles me that soccer is such a popular spectator sport elsewhere in the world. My son Michael loves playing it, and I can understand that, but I think it’s boring to watch.
A lot of uninitiated people think cricket is boring. I guess it depends on what you’re brought up with, so to that extent a country’s sporting culture is self perpetuating.
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
