Yeah. Talking about football not NBA, the Super Bowl might be the biggest event of the year in the US, but viewership numbers aren’t even 10% of total viewership for the world cup final.

El Clasico the biggest domestic club match in the world between Barcelona and Madrid averages 600-700 million viewers each year when they meet. Nothing matches the reach of soccer.

WC is way bigger than Olympics, nearly twice as much. 2022 WC finals alone pulled 1.5 billion viewers.

Just a random example, Paris 24 had 3.2 million total livestream viewers. Todays Brazil match broke the YouTube record with 16 million views, only streamed in Brazil and with 3 other channels also showing the game on TV.

Curious how the total numbers will compare with the expanded world cup this year.

But it is in China which is odd.

Yep it’s hockey

This has always been interesting to me because I have always felt like nba mega stars like lebron and MJ have always been more famous than their other sport counterparts in Tom Brady and I guess Wayne Gretzky. Definitely internationally at least. Though I guess ratings are only considered within US and Canada

Considering many americans still think the super bowl is bigger than the world cup i don’t find it surprising

Ironically, Tour de France has a larger global reach than the NBA according to Google lmao

We saw it with the Olympics. Steph outside of America is just a regular civilian, he got to be a tourist in London and Paris. If you’re not LeBron, Kobe, MJ I don’t even think most people outside of the US will know them.

And those #’s are FOR THE US ONLY. Doesn’t take into account global viewership, which would further massively skew the NBA v. WC comparison.

To play devils advocate the world cup only happens every 4 years. Im sure basketball ratings would be higher if there had only been 3 champs in the past 12 years instead of 12 different ones

With that said its still not close. Soccer is far far and away ahead of basketball in many ways

I live in Ireland we aren’t good enough to even qualify for the World Cup, but I can tell you every single World Cup game is televised on free tv here. Even ones that are on late at night.

I can also tell you that unless you pay for an expensive sports channels package you’re not getting much if any NBA games. Unless of course you pirate it.

That’s the difference maker right there. It’s on TV here. For free.

Yeah basketball is kind of limited in its scope by local infrastructure. If your city or town doesn’t have many courts, doesn’t maintain them, has poor public transport, etc. etc. then it can be very difficult to actually get to a basketball hoop.

I also feel like basketballs, sneakers, jerseys etc. are generally more expensive than the equivalent football gear (although maybe that’s changed since I last played soccer lol)

Just a ball and 2 rocks for the goal and you’re set

We’ve scraped Xs in the ground and played with a tied-up sweatshirt. There aren’t many sports that can compete with that.

I will say while traveling abroad in Latin America and Southeast Asia, I’ve been pretty impressed with the basketball infrastructure even in small towns.

Definitely still a distant second to soccer, obviously, but I think it’s pretty neat.

If you were strictly talking about Test cricket, then yeah, it’s relatively limited.  But the sport is played in all continents (bar Antarctica) and the cricket world cup is proof enough that it isn’t just South Asia nations and a few other token counties that play the sport.

Also, both basketball and cricket have the same issue of one country dominating the sport over all other nations.  If USA/India puts out their best team, anything less than a comfortable win is an upset.

In high school my friends and I would use a pole and a backpack for the goal lmao

Bingo. Soccer is the easiest sport to play with the least amount of resources. A ball is all you really need

It is bigger than the Olympics. Average match viewership is waaaay higher than Olympics. People watch a few events they’re interested in during Olympics, but most of the games are not that popular.

The Olympics doesn’t come close really. The only thing that could rival a random world cup game is the 100m final, and that lasts for like 5 minutes including pre and post race.

Not even a question, WC is waaaaay bigger than the Olympics. It’s not even close.

I love the NBA, but was so glad the finals were over to focus on the World Cup. Truly nothing like it, the goat of all sporting events.

On a game by game scale it for sure is bigger

I’m guessing “how many people turned in at some point” across the whole WC vs Olympics ends up being a closer contest, but I doubt there is any one event that rivals key WC games

It’s way bigger than the Olympics. If I remember correctly the 2022 final had 1 billion viewers. The Olympics opening ceremony had like 30 million

You’d be surprised, I’ve definitely seen people on this sub think American football and basketball are more popular than football (soccer).

People on YouTube once argued with me about the best sports rivalry in the world. I think they mentioned Duke vs UNC college basket. Love that rivalry, but I said it’s nothing compared to Barca vs Real Madrid. They had no clue about Barca and Real Madrid, and said no one cares about soccer when I said they’re soccer teams.

It’s accessible to all body types, too. You cant be too short or too weak like with some other sports. I only got into basketball cause I didnt grow enough for the rugby position I played from 6-15 to keep playing at the level I wanted too, decent height but was incapable of putting on myscle as a teen. And im sure a lot of people here lost interest in ball cause they stopped growing at like 5”7. Not really an issue with soccer

There’s also a massive nationalism element. I’m pretty sure a higher percentage of soccer fans only watch 1 sport compared to fans of any other sport.

the WC is much bigger than the Olympics, it’s not even close, don’t get me wrong the Olympics are nice, but not WC nice

They’re delusional and can’t see past their country, non-americans know football is the bigger sport

r/NBATalk over the years is now just r/NBAcirclejerk with less wnba trolls, less jokes about Kobe and Malone, and less jokes about players being r*tarted….

But basically the Venn diagram of the users of those two subs is a circle at this point

The shitpost and jerking they cook up on Bilibili is fucking hilarious though

Canada has a better chance to win the World Cup than the Stanley Cup.

Edit: That was mean. I apologize.

MJ said his 5’8 brother was better than him growing and would always beat him 1 on 1. There’s a video of his brother doing a windmill dunk in the 80s lol. Guy had the same crazy athleticism as MJ but just was 10 inches shorter.

Not in revenue. American sports have a lot of money poured into them

NFL got more revenue cause of the ridiculous money poured into ads and sponsors.

Popularity wise it’s India but revenue is definitely NFL.

Yeah it’s almost impossible to find a country where soccer isn’t a huge deal.

Then there’s my country, The Philippines, where basketball is a national sport while most of the people here are around 5’5”. I’ve been wishing for the longest time for football to become big here.

and you don’t even need grass. you can play a sand