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Comment by toyg | Hacker News Reader

I'd be surprised if cricket was the second sport worldwide, it's not played outside the old British colonies. Granted, one of those ex-colonies is India...

Basketball is the second sport in Europe by number of participants, for sure.

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By size of fan base, cricket is worldwide #2, basketball is #7.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport#Popularity

Cricket is also played in places that Indians have emigrated to, like the US.

It is played, almost exclusively, by said immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. So only in a handful of cities where there's a critical mass of them that are somewhat recently immigrated (and there is room for grounds).

"Played" as in a bunch of friends get together have a friendly game in the park on weekends or "played" as in a has an active pro league and a national teams that competes in major international tournaments?

Several (and by several I mean hundreds) leagues exist across various cities just in USA. They have properly organized tournaments and winners win prize money. Its not a bunch of friends who play in the park. These leagues have to maintain fields, proper playing gear and so on...

Here is just one example - http://www.bayareacricket.org/

"Basketball is the second sport in Europe by number of participants, for sure."

Any references for that?

(I should have said team sports, apologies)

It's the second most popular team sport in most European countries, including the major ones. It's the second one even in England, despite low visibility and significant competition by sports that don't really exist elsewhere [0].

[0] https://www.skysports.com/more-sports/news/36244/12069769/ba...

Hmm. I know someone who works in the UK basketball industry and it's very niche as an organised sport. Attendance at local events is really low. Something that sums up basketball in the UK for me is that I have a local basketball court but the kids only play football on it. There will be ethnic/regional variation though so I'm interested in the real figures.

These are the only hard figures I can find and it puts basketball behind cricket:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/899184/basketball-partic...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/899199/cricket-participa...

It's ahead of rugby union but about the same if combining with the league variant (ignoring recent covid years).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/899308/rugby-union-parti...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/899302/rugby-league-part...

Something to bear in mind when comparing it as a "team sport" is that it's not quite like for like. Basketball is much more accessible like tennis - it can be played casually with a couple of friends. A lot of homes will have a hoop in the garden or driveway.

Cricket and rugby will mostly be organised teams, dedicated pitches etc. If the question was "do you play in a local sports team" then I expect basketball to not be comparable. There might be more people playing with a frisbee in a park than are members of a local rugby team but calling it "a more popular sport than rugby" would feel misleading by failing to account for different level of commitment/organisation required.

Number of participants isn't really the best gauge when we're talking about stadia. Basketball might be played in most British schools and casually by many more people in yards with a hoop, but few British people could name a single UK basketball team; our basketball league is essentially ignored by mainstream media. Rugby takes a lot more organization due to being an inherently dangerous sport especially without competent technique and refereeing, but international games see sellout crowds of 80,000 with millions more watching on TV.

Fascinating, thanks - I had no idea basketball was that popular - where I live I'd have said rugby was the obvious candidate for the second most popular team sport with other sports like shinty far behind it.

Yeah I would think it would be rugby. There's a fair few basketball courts in the UK (often combined with tennis courts) but professionally it's not on the radar at all. Less so even than ice hockey.

Rugby has minuscule participation rates outside of Britain, Ireland, and France. Which is why Italy can continue to take part in the 6 Nations despite being abysmal: because there is nobody else.

Even in England, by participation rates it edges rugby, because it's the second sport in populous inner cities.

I believe our friends in New Zealand are quite good at it too... ;-)

The fact they insist on living in the other hemisphere kinda stops them from applying for the 6 Nations though ;)

Do you have a source for that? I've just looked into it and while the data is sparse and the list after #1 Football varies in order, basketball doesn't make an appearance at all in the articles I've seen.

It does appear that basketball is very popular outside western Europe though, so I learned something today! It makes sense, I do enjoy basketball myself and think that a lot of sports in Europe persist on the weight of tradition moreso than their fun factor.

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