Field hockey, third most popular sport in the world?

According to WikiAnswers it is, but how they arrived to such conclusion (stadium assistance, TV followers, club partners...)?

1) Soccer. 3.3-3.5 Billion Fans. (Europe, Africa, Americas,etc)
2) Cricket 3-3.3 Billion Fans. (India,U.K,Pakistan,Asia,Australia,etc)
3) Field Hockey. 2-2.2 Bilion Fans. (Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia)
4) Tennis. Around 1 Billion Fans. (Europe, Americas, Asia)
5) Volleyball Around 900 Million Fans. (Asia, Erope, Americas, Australia)
6) Table Tennis Around 900 Million Fans. (Asia, Europe, Africa, Americas)
7) Baseball Around 500 Million Fans. (U.S,Canada, Japan)
8) Golf Around 400 Million Fans. (U.S, Canada, Europe)
9) Football 390-410 Million Fans. (U.S, Canada mainly)
10) Basketball Not more than 400M Fans. (U.S, Canada mainly)

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_most_popular_sports_in_the_world

Also, I would like to know what the numbers could turn into without India or Pakistan, I bet 1,9 billions are from there.

I dont believe cricket is that high up... ??? almost as much as football(soccer)? considering europe, america, africa and asia all play football...

Thanks for posting this r_kenshin but I am not sure how accurate this is. After all, the page you mention does not site any real statistics and the attached links do not match this either. In fact, if you go to another page it shows Basketball and another shows Volleyball etc. From what I understand, Field Hockey is the second biggest played team sport in the world (behind soccer/football). Those statistics show hockey and are from a US based reference so I believe that they may be talking about our Hockey cousins from the Ice variety (maybe!?!).

I was under the impression that hockey was the most played sport in the world? I think I got this from either last year's World Cup programme or some literature from this tournament. It kind of makes sence when you think about it because of the fact that equal ammounts of men and women play it compared to most the other sports and also with it being big in such populated countries as India and USA.

try and get mainstream news on hockey. easier finding news on snooker, or darts even. darts! how’s that a sport?! :baffled:
at least in snooker you got to bend over the table.

I guess hockey is considered so popular due to the large number of kids playing it in places such as America (correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm surprised golf isn't higher up. Especially when you think about how much money is in the sport from sponsors because companies, quite obviously, throw money at popular things/sports.

Popular sport doesn't equal money though. The sports that have money in them are the ones that have the media backing and through this create the interest from the masses. Hockey is a prime example that popularity doesn't mean that it will get attention. It is a long running debate on my Uni course as to whether the media creates interest in sport or whether interest in sport creates media interest and I'm a firm believer in the first.

I don't know about you guys but I am always met with the response of "Hockey?? That's a girls game isn't it??" when I tell anyone i play hockey. Do you think this is why it isn't covered in the mainstream media as much? Out of the ten sports you list soccer, cricket, table tennis, baseball, golf, football and basketball are (in my opinion) mainly stereotypicaly male orientated whilst the only sport I immediately think 'female sport' is volleyball with tennis and hockey being what I would consider being an equal male/female dominated sport. Is it a big surprise that the female teams in the big male dominated sports get little or no coverage in the media? Can you name a women's cricket team? A women's baseball team maybe? I know I can't.

I have to tell you that the sport of field hockey here in the US is very small but is on the rise. There's FAR more hockey played in the UK where I am originally from. I am not sure why people have the perception that field hockey is big here. Lets put things into perspective - they do have competitive high school league structures for girls, a great structure for college level but after that things are so limited. The club structure over here struggles year in year out but I do know (because I have had several discussion with people at the USFHA) that their main focus will become club development which, eventually, should see a massive turnaround in the state of play over here.

It is really booming here in the mid Atlantic region, but it's always been strong for school-age and collegiate girls. Where the growth is is at grass-roots level. Where it isn't is in boy's hockey. There are a few travel clubs about that are changing that demographic, but very few and far between. I'd hope that USFHA is behind the development of boy's hockey but as it would be outside the school structure, it will be slow going. Ex-pats like yourself are huge influences on boys getting into the sport, as well as the high school boys that are savvy enough to realize that it's a great sport and the male/female ratios here in the US work in their favor!

ditto like! but I suppose women play softball rather than baseball, even still though, I couldnt name you a team! Same goes for ice hockey...I know females play it but it isnt in the media! The only womens sport (that I know of) to get media attention is tennis, golf, the womens FA cup, athletics and hockey WC (please correct me if you can think of anything else in the uk plese!!) :yes:

viks

Female ice hockey gets a lot of media coverage here in Canada because of the fact that the male version of the sport is #1 here. That is a fairly remarkable exception, as women's athletics are more supported in the "individual" forms - tennis, golf, gymnastics, track. Other than ice hockey, women's team sports are ignored - I believe because the marketing model for women's sport is to focus on her sexuality, which is easier to do for an individual than for a group.

degsya i would be surprised if those numbers were from a US based source since they list cricket as number 2 in the world. lets face it how many people in the US even know what cricket is?

on the topic, does anyone else think that maybe the fact that hockey is a very unisex sport could hinder it slightly in media coverage? like the tv companies dont have the room to broadcast both the top level mens and womens forms of the game, but since it really is marketed as both sexes having top notch competitions (instead of most tv sports where its mainly a single sex getting tv coverage) the FIH (or whoever does the broadcasting rights) doesnt really want one sex being portrayed more in the media than another?

im not saying that is the only or even main factor, but i reckon is does contribute to the lack of consistant media coverage

just have a look at fieldhockey.tv for instance, most of the dutch league games are from the mens league, your lucky if you get one game a week on the site, whereas you get 2-4 mens games a week!

Also the eurohockey league, they set up the mens eurohockey league first!

I do agree with you NITW, but it does look like even hockey is becoming a more mens dominated sport, even though it is considered to be a 'unisex' sport!

viks

Ragyrascal,

Yes I agree Sky bought into the wealth of football because of the potential to make money however people seem to forget that there was football before sky and it was big then too. Through sky, the game has changed out of all proporations and I would say that is solely through sky. Just look how little football changed between the 60's and early 80's for example. What I do believe is though that there is a certain amount of power the media has in saying what people are interested in and the opinion people have with sport. If football wasn't on the back 10 pages of every newspaper and every game wasn't available on sky or other channels now then it certainly wouldn't be the game it is today or have the following it does. Rugby league is a great example of the power tv has on a sport. Before sky got the rights to cover this sport, less than 20,000 people went to the super league final, after sky had 'glammed' it up over 70,000 went to last years final at Wembley and was little money in this sport when sky went into it.


Summing up really, no people don't watch football only because of sky, but the number of people who watch football over any other sport I would probably is beacuse of them.

good post, ragy! you too gk09! :yes:

Is it too much to ask that hockey gets a little slice of that pie? You would think that the rising obesity epidemic amongst children would propel all sports into the media to try and encourage them to take something up. However, that would be the sensible thing and as we all know governments are not capable of 'sensible'.

Yes... excellent posts both gk09 and Ragyrascal.

Popularity versus TV coverage is never going to be an equal equation, with the costs of showing differing sports varying so greatly. Tennis, for example cam be shown using only one or two fixed cameras, and one (usually lower level) camera for close-ups etc. Tennis, along with Indoor Hockey (I dont know what Sky (or whatever comany covered it for them) had set up for the Finals Day), could feasibly be done on a budget, with only one camera operator, the fixed cameras being unmanned, and so are attractive to production companies where Outdoor the size of the pitch and speed of the game requires at least double the equipment and operators.

My favourite popularity v. tv coverage example somes fron Scottish Rugby and Cricket. There are more registered Cricketers in Scotland, than Rugby players, yet clearly Rugby gets far more TV coverage. Only once has Cricket been shown on BBCScotland in recent years, where the Six nations has been shown every year as far back as i can remember. However the Scotland v. India Cricket game last year has the highest viewing figures for any BBC Scotland produced programme EVER, ahead of Old Firm matches and the opening of the Scottish Parliament! I agree that the fact that it lasted 6 hours meant nobody in the country had much of a chance to be channel hopping and miss it, but thems the numbers!