The 2nd Most Popular Sport in the World is Coming to America (Kick Started By a Billion Dollar Investment)

Yesterday we highlighted a list detailing the top 10 most popular sports in the world and many expressed surprise that cricket appeared in second place (after soccer). The post coincided with England winning the cricket World Cup in the most exciting of finishes, arguably in the history of the sport.

Ad the sport is coming to America courtesy of a $1 billion investment from the founders of Willow TV and Satyan Gajwani and Vineet Jain, the principals of The Times of India Group.

As reported by Forbes, “USA Cricket [] revealed it had selected American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) as its strategic partner for the development of a professional T20 tournament in the U.S.”

The post added “ACE said it would work to develop additional turf cricket pitches and auxiliary facilities in more than a dozen locations in a bid for cricket to stage major domestic and international cricket. Boasting the world’s biggest sports market, cricket power brokers have long viewed the U.S. as an untapped gold mine.”

In other news, USA Cricket announced the national team coaching is being restructured.

As they say in cricket, howzat!

The Top 10 Most Popular Sports in The World Are?

Sportsshow.net is “a dedicated sports blog that covers latest and trending top 10 lists, sports news, schedules, rankings and the latest happenings from the sports world.”

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They recently listed the top 10 most ‘popular’ sports in the world, and the results might surprise you. They explain “it is important to know exactly what we mean by most popular sports.”

adding:

“The word “popular” could mean “most-watched sports,” “most played sports,” or “most revenue-generating sports”. But in all honesty, it would be unfair to rank the sports by popularity, if we take just one or two criteria. Therefore, we have decided to use 15 different criteria in order to rank the most popular sports in the world.”

Sportsshow.net used a long list to rank the sports including:

  • Global Fan Base and Audience
  • Viewership on TV
  • TV Rights Deals
  • Popularity on Internet
  • Presence on Social Media
  • Number of Professional Leagues in the World
  • Average Salary of Athletes in the Top Leagues
  • Sponsorship Deals
  • Number of Countries in Which the Sport is Popular
  • Biggest Competition
  • Relevancy Throughout the Year
  • Gender Equality
  • Access to the General Public
  • Number of Amateur Players in The World
  • The prominence of the sport in sports headlines on print and electronic media

Here is the list, in order – let us know what you think!. For full details click here.

1. Soccer/Association Football
2. Cricket
3. Basketball
4. Field Hockey
5. Tennis
6. Volleyball
7. Table Tennis
8. Baseball
9. Americal Football/Rugby
10. Golf