can anyone tell me which is the most popular sport in America?
922468
If measured by the number of participants, it is fishing.
799548
While soccer has the biggest international following of any sport, in the USA, there's just too much competition and too little interest in America.  Baseball, basketball, hockey, football, NASCAR and college sports all eat up precious amount of media time.  MSL, America's soccer league, gets covered but it's secondary.  \nIt's fan interest and papers and other media cater, as they should, to what their readers want.  It's a shame, soccer is a great game but the competition with other sports is just too great.
1091724
I think it's stupid to make your argument "soccer is not popular in the US because of shootouts."  If that was a reason for soccer to not be popular, then it wouldn't be popular not ONLY in the US but in other parts of the world as well.  Why is it that US fans exclusively can't like soccer because of that?  I'm not saying that shootouts are good or that Americans should like football, but it's absolutely ridiculous to limit this reason to why Americans don't like it.  There are many other plausible reasons for why the US is not a soccer-dominated country.  We have other "American" sports (football, baseball, etc.).  It's like why Canada's hockey is so popular while hockey's not so hot in say, France.  Also, you can't compare two sports; as the cliche goes, it's like comparing apples and oranges.  Baseball and soccer both have their good/bad points, but they are completely different sports played different ways.  Baseball is definitely less physical, because you don't see the players running around every single minute of the game; most of the time they stand there and then when making plays, they run around and throw the ball.  I don't claim to be a great expert on either sport, but once again, not liking shootouts and thus not liking soccer is not a reason exclusive to American fans for not liking soccer.\n\nOkay, now to answer the other part of your lengthy question lol.  I think shoot-outs are a clean-cut way of determining the winner in a match.  You shoot goals; make them, you win.  Miss some, you lose, go home.  They test the individual skills of the players and while I do regret that they don't test the strength of a team as a whole, they do eliminate one major problem that people have with soccer matches: biased refs.  Here, the ref can't call fouls where there are none and if a goal goes in, fans can't complain that somehow the ref was paid off to look the other way.  In a sudden death match, the winners' fans would celebrate and the lowers would always see something wrong or corrupted about how they just weren't lucky.  While the argument could be made that in a normal round, this happens all the time, so why not just have that determine the end, you have to realize how difficult it is to play such a physically challenging sport as soccer for such long periods of time lol.  What if the game went on for a whole day without an end, like in Harry Potter's Quidditch?  That may not seem plausible, but it certainly would be possible.  Lastly, I think it's only fair that each team knows how much time they have to score a goal rather than just seeing who scores first.  In such a case, I can definitely see the match getting increasingly dirtier as each team must not only score/defend, they know that under no condition can they allow the other team to make a goal.\n\nxexect - About your message, sorry if I seemed harsh :/.  I'm not trying to insult you yourself, but rather, I felt that your argument was flawed.  However, judging by what you have written and your analysis on the other part of the question, I would definitely say that you're not stupid!
409066
yes football is the most popular sport in d planet, becacuse its exhilarating to watch. firstly and clearly most significant, is the development of the world cup from an invitational tournament among a few elite soccer nations to a global television circus which commands greater attention than any other world sporting event. parallel to the world cup, has been the explosive growth of the highest-level club game. the european champions league not only commands attention on every continent, its dominant clubs have become dependent upon global talent. is a sport that is loved and played all over the world. bigs clubs in europe continue to play in different countries, like asia, and north america trying to break into the market and make it a even more popular sport.
721680
It is just not the "IN" sport. Americans are different to the rest of the world. They want contact sports and/or high scores. Soccer is considered neither. World football is not shown much over here so when American think of soccer they think of that pathetic excuse of a league, the MLS. Because the MLS is boring and slow, they think that all soccer is boring and slow. It will take a while to become the number one sport but i think it eventually will. The problem now is the parents. Because they were brought up with baseball, basketball, american football, and ice hockey, they want their kids to play it. I actually know someone in America whose dad wouldn't let him play soccer! All it will take is for the soccer loving generation (in about the next 30 years) to have children and pass on their love for the game, then it will spread like a forest fire. It is definately becoming more popular but at my school, about 1500 people think it is a stupid sport. So that means that when they have kids, their kids will have similar views. One generation is all it will take.
601273
Hockey is more popular
415365
World Cup.\n\nThis is the most watched sporting event in the world and soccer is the greatest sport in the world.  It has been proven to be the most competitive sport.  Please read the article from Boston University entitled "What is less than super about the Super Bowl?"  Which shows American Football to have the least competitive games of all of the major sports!  \n\nBelow is a copy of the article and a link to the page.\n\n\nWhat is less than super about the Super Bowl\nStatistics show that when it comes to competition, football loses\nBy Chris Berdik\n \nGraphic by Kim Han\n \nGot any plans for Sunday, say around 6 p.m.? Chances are pretty good that along with about 90 million Americans, you will be watching Super Bowl XL, between the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Super Bowl is perennially one of American television’s biggest draws, this year fetching ABC a record $2.5 million for every 30 seconds of advertising. What explains such massive allure? According to a study by Sidney Redner, a College of Arts and Sciences physics professor, it’s probably not the competition.  \n\nRedner and colleagues Federico Vazquez, a GRS physics grad student, and researcher Eli Ben-Naim of the Los Alamos National Laboratory crunched a century’s worth of numbers, more than 300,000 games from the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the English Premier League (soccer), to determine the relative competitiveness of each sport. The researchers based the notion of competitiveness on the probability of an upset victory by the team with a lesser record of wins and losses. And when it comes to this measure of competitiveness, it turns out, the NFL comes up a loser, with a 36.4 percent chance of an upset in any given game. Soccer was the most competitive sport, with the underdog pulling off a victory 45.2 percent of the time. \n\n\nRedner, a statistical and theoretical physicist, often studies complex systems outside of mainstream physics. In this case, he and his colleagues were using sports statistics to test a model they developed to approximate competition in another complex system: society, specifically social stratification. Put simply, if class structure could be thought of as the result of millions of competitions between individuals, then adjusting the frequency and upset probability of these competitions would result in more or less egalitarian societies.  \n\n“We were not driven by sports questions; we were driven entirely by statistics,” Redner says. Indeed, sports holds little interest for Redner except as a source of statistics and as the occasional metaphor. “This sports study was sort of an off-the-wall project of something that was already out in left field,” he explains.  \n\nBut this is the Super Bowl we’re talking about, not some run-of-the-mill Sunday gridiron matchup. Surely that should ratchet up the competitiveness, right? Well, not exactly. Statistics remind us that there have been only 11 upsets in Super Bowl history, meaning the big game defies the oddsmakers only 28 percent of the time. \n\nYeah, well, you can bet the Rolling Stones won’t be performing at any World Cup halftime shows.        \n\n\n\nhttp://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/news/?dept=4&id=37743&template=7
31285
It really depends on the part of the country. But for the most part Football is spreading its lead over baseball in the popularity contest. The games are faster, feature more action, and there are far fewer of them. The superbowl itself is the most watched sporting event in the United States.
511556
The popularity of the sports vary depending on where you live. In the UK football dominates all over sports and has by far the greatest following. The UK has a long history of football and a passion for the game that stretches back over many years. And by football i mean soccer (as it would be classed in the US). \n\nAs for US football i have to confess i know very little about it considering i live in the UK. Not quite sure why it's even called football considering the players throw and catch the ball throughout most of the game! It seems to have a big following in the US though so it must have some appeal.\n\nFor me personally Football (Soccer) is the much greater game. It's fast, tactical and gives license to players to pull off some amazing tricks. For me the large following over here in the UK is another factor. Rivalry between clubs is fantastic and it creates a passion for the game that i feel is unequalled. I also think Football (Soccer) is a very international sport and can help bring large communities together - as will be seen at the World Cup in the summer. Football can often get bad press through hooligans and thugs but they are in the minority. It has the potential to bring people together in a way no other sport can.
969086
1.- Mexico\n2.- National pastime, just like baseball is here.\n3.-None, soccer is the most played sport in the world.\n4.-Soccer in America has a back seat to other sports, so it doesn't have any effect, the common denominator here is that it unites people from very different ethnic backgrounds to play. In Mexico, soccer is followed by a very passionate group of people, one can easily skip school, work, you name it, just to watch a soccer game.\n5.- They identify with each other. They are strangers with the same interest, communication is easier as well.\n6.- No, it doesn't matter.
145304
Depends where u from actually!!\nSoccer is the most  popular sport throughout Africa .Then we have some countries especially those that were colonized by Britain e.g South Africa ,Zimbabwe, Kenya and Namibia to name a few these countries play sports played by the British or europeans  , soccer , rugby ,tennis ,golf  and cricket just to name a few.
54821
Baseball has its origins from Cricket. Baseball was infact first belived to be played in Boston outside a regular cricket grounds. While the lucky few who managed to get into the cricket team played cricket, those who could not invented this new game and played it outside the cricket grounds.\n\nI would tend to say that cricket is the more popular game worldwide. However, in the United States Baseball is probably the most popular game along with American Football.
192662
Rugby is NOT the most popular sport in Australia and South Africa.  Cricket is the most popular sport in Oz, and Soccer is the most popular sport in SA.  The only countries where you could call it the most popular sport are New Zealand and several of the Pacific islands.\n\nRugby is popular because it is perhaps the most pure contact sport and the predecessor to many popular variations, such as American Football and Aussie Rules.  A lot of people inclined to play and watch contact sports find Rugby more appealing than other contact sports.  It is usually considered tougher, faster and more exciting than the alternatives.\n\nThe fact that it is an English sport also helps its popularity, as the English spread it to all their colonies.  It is arguably the second most popular sport in the world, behind Soccer obviously.  You would be surprised where it is popular.  South America has a long history of Rugby for instance, an Argentina has fielded a competitive team for decades.  It is also popular in Eastern Europe, the fastest growing sport in the USA and gaining traction in Asia.
306167
Look no further than the true american sport...\nFootball (both NFL, College, and High School)\nThousands of Americans pack into stadiums each weekend for the events.
338224
AROUND HALF THE GLOBE!!!! 3 BILLION... CHECK THAT NUMBER!! AMERICANS... ITS THE BEST SPORT IN THE WORLD!!
1167169
it's acually very popular among small kids because it's such a cheap sport to get started in. but as far a spectator sport is concerned, no one watches. there is a pro leauge here but it's very small and unpopular, it has no TV contract. i would say less than 2% of americans are serious soccer fans.
425470
It is a 'No Brainer'... Soccer is by far the very best sport of the three listed in the question.  American Football is a distant second.  It can be fun to watch but the games take far too long and more often it is BORING!  It is fun to shoot hoops or play a pick up game of Basketball but basketball is a joke.  Ice Hockey, Baseball and Lacrosse are the best team sports as well as Soccer... Soccer can improve its exposure world wide by relaxing the offsides rule which in my opinion will lead to more scoring.  Soccer also needs to do more to limit the clutching and grabbing as well as the diving.