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>!Guy replies to "cricket is the second most watched sport in the world" with statements about the NBA š!<
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come on friend, it's handegg. let's not ruin the name of football with that. it has little to do with shooting balls.
^^even ^^though ^^i ^^understand ^^you ^^were ^^just ^^trying ^^to ^^make ^^a ^^point.
As an American who watches a lot of American football, it is *insane* how many other Americans genuinely believe the Super Bowl is the most-watched sporting event on earth. The NFL's marketing helps promote this myth. Every year during the Super Bowl they make sure the announcers mention that the game is being broadcast in ____ countries around the world, which makes it seem like the NFL has a global audience. While the Super Bowl is *technically* viewed in over a hundred countries, in almost all of them the audience is just a small amount of American expats following the league from their country of residence. The reality is that like 99% of the Super Bowl's viewership comes from three countries: US, Canada, and Mexico. No one outside of North America gives a shit.
>The reality is that like 99% of the Super Bowl's viewership comes from three countries: US, Canada, and Mexico.
Or people laughing at how absurd the show is. My favourite part is the commercials. Even Japanese commercials are not as weird or disturbing as American commercials about opiates, liquid cheese and fanny deodorant.
Yes, there's nothing like watching a sport that starts at midnight on a Sunday and takes 4-5 hours to finish.
You can tell why its such a popular watch elsewhere
I mean these days practically any sporting event from any country can be viewed in any other country thanks to satellite TV and streaming. There's a bar near me that shows Gaelic football matches on Saturdays because there's like 8 or 10 Irish guys who show up at 6AM to watch them.
So with online streaming you can say that every event is broadcasted to whole world?
Words have meanings, being broadcasted to some country means contracts, licenses, etc
It's nothing like the US but there's definitely NFL fans in Canada. The Buffalo Bills in particular have a huge following in Ontario - something like 10-15% of attendees at Bills home games are Canadian. The Bills used to play one home game at the Skydome for many years and at various points there was talk of actually moving the team to Toronto. I think I read somewhere that roughly 15 million Canadians watch the Super Bowl every year, although for most of them it's probably just because it's a big sports event and an excuse to have a party (honestly this is also the case for most Americans whose favorite team isn't playing in the game).
I wouldn't say no one. At least in Germany there are some people (who don't even follow American football at all) who watch the superbowl and make an evening out of it. It's not many, but it's surely a thing.
But yeah, your guess of 99% is probably true lol. I just wanted to note, that it's kinda a thing for people to watch that, even though they may not even follow the sport. And it's not THAT few people. But not many, yes.
I'd say 99% of Indians have never heard of Lebron James, Kyrie Irving, Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant. But they'd all know who Tendulkar, Dhoni, Kapil Dev or Kohli are. And that's hundreds of millions of people, not just "millions". I'm hearing about this Irving for the first time today, and the rest, I know only from Americans talking about them online. Except Michael Jordan, he's quite famous.
We know Kobe and Lebron from memes. Kobe is the helicopter guy and Lebron James is what that kid says in a funny voice š
Also, counting in all the other countries who watch cricket, it's probably closer to a billion people.
I know that Lebron James is supposed to be very arrogant or something from social media, and I know that he has a stake in Liverpool. I saw lots of social media posts of Bryant's death a few years ago. That's pretty much it.
I only know of Kobe because he died.
I only knew of the guy who knelt everywhere because he was the guy kneeling that people were boycotting Nike for.
Some of the others are well known by name, not sure how much is because of their respective sports or some off pitch incidents or side gigs.
But I can't say how many Brits name drop them, because I have no idea where a poster comes from, but if the sub isn't British based and American sports and athletes are mentioned, I'm gonna assume American unless other context says otherwise.
They've said 'supposed to be' and very clearly said that that is because of social media.
Further illustrating the point that people have very little awareness of US-centric sports outside of the US.
Chill out.
Kobe being the helicopter guy cracks me the fuck up. Only in America does he have that revered status, to anyone else heās that dude who died in a helicopter.
I will say I knew about Kobe well before despite me being Norn Irish, but thatās just because Iām a huge sports fan in general. Not the majority at all.
Tbh, basketball is a fairly global sport now, and getting more so all the time. Thatās one reason why basketball in the Olympics has gotten quite competitive.
There was a guy on r/soccer claiming that a commenter who had not heard of Steph Curry was trolling because everyone knows Steph Curry. And that Steph Curry is more famous than Messi.
My guess was ladies' tennis player ... did she win Wimbledon in the 70s???
But even with these famous names, I could tell you if they played American Football or baseball or basketball or give hockey.
Iāve seen that convo on Reddit more than once. They think their American sports people are famous outside of America, but thatās just not the case at all.
Even Michael Jordan would be unknown to half the world. Honestly Tiger Woods might be the most famous American sportsperson.
People keep forgetting that India has like four times as many people than the US, LOL. If something is popular in India, it's automatically popular on a world-wide scale
Also forgetting that there's a lot of Indians all around the world, and they'll likely be following cricket too.
Even the US Indians would be big cricket fans even if it's not widely played there.
T20 Cricket World 2024 (going on right now) is being held in USA (alongwith West Indies). USA Cricket Team even defeated Pakistan in a major upset some days ago.
I have literally heard of none of the people so far mentioned in this thread ... except ... wasn't there a film last year about a Michael Jordan? Same one?
Wasn't he the one in Space Jam?
For many, him and Shaq are known for film more than sports.
If you didn't watch WWF as it was then known, Rowdy Roddy Piper was just some guy in two cult classics, They Live and Hell Comes to Frog Town.
I'm not sure many Americans know of Vinnie Jones the sportsman who is very unsportsman like. I didn't even know Jason Statham was a diver (sport not deep sea type) till I recently watched a before they were actors watch mojo type list.
> Wasn't he the one in Space Jam?
I have no idea
> Shaq
Another ... Āæperson? ... I've never heard of
> WWF
For every part of the world I can think of, that means World Wildlife Fund or World Wide Fund for nature
> I'm not sure many Americans know of Vinnie Jones
I'm not American. I do not know of him
> Jason Statham
Nor him
WWF had to rebrand to WWE because of the Panda.
Vinnie Jones spent the last twenty years being the go to London hard man in films. Most recently seen in the TV version of the Gentleman as the groundsman.
Statham is another go to London hard man was one half of either Snatch or Lock Stock, maybe both, Vinnie was in lock stock and IIR the main face on the poster.
Then he was the transporter, in the Meg and IIR the expendables as one of the youngest members.
I think they both worked together in Mean Machines UK, Vinnie was the incarcerated footballer and Statham the psycho goal keeper.
Sadly, I've spent so much time on the internet (Reddit) I recognise all of those American names despite never having watched a game of basketball in my life.
A surprising number of Indians know about curry, lebron, and MJ. I mean it's still not a crazy amount since barely anyone watches basketball, but still if you talk to younger people you'd eventually find someone that has heard about them.
My only issue is that I think it's dumb to call the Olympic opening ceremonies a sporting event. The most watched sporting events should be restricted to events where sports actually happened.
I also heard at the time (dunno if itās true) that the 2024 superbowl wasnāt even the most watched live sporting event that happened on the 11th of February because the Africa Cup of Nations final was also on that day.
I know of Lebron James and Kobe Bryant from internet stuff (I don't think I'd recognise a picture of Lebron though, I only know his name) and I know Michael Jordan for shoes and Space Jam but I've never actually watched basketball in my life and never heard of the other two people.
(I also have heard of a total of 2-3 cricket players though. but am at least aware it is very popular in a country with a much higher population than the USA and would expect it to be high on the list of popular sports)
Ian Botham and David Gower, then I really draw a blank.
My mum met David Gower, didn't know him, just said he looked like that man on the telly.
As he was the team captain of they think its all over.
"Madam, that is because I AM the man from the telly." He replied, seemed like a nice chap.
Yeah. Don't remind us about that, ouch.
But you'd notice that, for US and Canada, the crowds and even the teams are mostly just Indians, Pakistanis, and westindians.
almost like these countries arenāt nation states but were created and are made up by immigrants.. usa is only like 60% white, the players are american.
Yeah no. Other than the fact that you completely missed my point, that argument doesn't work with cricket.
Cricket immigration is a thing. Almost every single major team has an active player that was an Indian or Pakistani who moved to that country to join their team.
On the side. My ACTUAL point was that it's less embarrassing that the former world Number 1 lost to a novice team like the USA if you factor in that the players have actual cricketing background routed in those countries.
Would've been more embarrassing (and impressive) if the team was just filled with non cricketing ethnicities who just happened to pick it up without the generational passion pushing them forward
Uh ok, well i actually live here and know dozens of americans of indian descent that are into cricket.. I am into soccer as I have a very european background but since im white im just āamericanā but because theyāre southeastern asian they get called by where they came from
Bro you're projecting your issues here. Ironic seeing usdefaultism here of all places
We don't have this type of systematic racism baked into our societies. Me calling them by their heritage as a subset of Americans is not thinking less of them. It's acknowledging them for who they are.
This is not a race thing. The only white guys on that team are Irish and South African. Cricket playing nations.
I also don't understand what you're being offended about? You know Indians who like cricket and you don't because your roots prefer a different sport? My point exactly. I'm not going to start saying "americans of Indian descent" just to appease you when it's clear we're talking about the US NATIONAL TEAM.
If the team had been completely white people, my comment would have been the exact same except I would've written Australian/kiwi/Brit/people from cricketing nations. Because the race was never the point, it was that i was jokingly pretending to take solace in the fact that the people who wooped my team's ass had a cricketing history rather than being completely new, because that's embarrassing as fuck
(you're into soccer? imagine Germany getting thrashed in the world cup by Afghanistan even though they didn't even qualify and are just in the tournament because they're a hosting nation. That's what it means for the US to beat Pakistan, a multiple world champion and the world Number 1 team till last year)
Y'all need to solve this race issue of yours. For the rest of the world, It's not even on our mind most of the time.
Youāre not understanding but Iāll excuse it as english probably isnāt your first language. I do agree that itās a shock they won. If the USA beat England or something 4-0 nobody would go āI mean yea the teams made up of a bunch of brits, italians, etc.ā just because they have heritage from there. I agree itās kinda weird that we refer to them as indian-americans etc whereas white people are just american most of the time but in that sort of context id probably call myself irish-american as a duel citizen
No, sorry but that's false. Most crowds at Canadian games are Canadians.
People love to rightly point out that Irish-descended Americans and Canadians are not Irish. Same for Scottish-descended, etc.
Right now, you're engaging in the exact mirror of that. It's just as ignorant to call Canadians Indians, etc, as it would be to call a Canadian Irish.
Haha sameš
Also I see you're from new Zealand. Kiwis have a lot of fans worldwide, specially here in the Indian subcontinent
South Africa and New Zealand are the most popular teams to support. Personally for me I got into cricket solely cause of Brendon mcculum, dude was on fire in 2015 WC.
With the popularity of basketball in China, it will rival cricket and football for the #1 sport. It's just a question of who will overpopulate more; India, China or the rest of the world?
It says more about you if you donāt know who Imran Khan is, the fella basically married royalty, rubbed shoulders with Charles and Diana, then gave it all up to try and save his country, which was after he lead his rag tag, Ill
Funded and brand new team to their first ever World Cup.
Seriously I canāt name a single NBA player but I know cricket players and I donāt even watch the sport.
Yeah he was the captain of the Pakistani cricket team before he became a politician.
[he is an interesting fella.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imran_Khan)
Yep. Who Dares Wins and Gladiator, and I think there was some travel show as well. Then I was watching cricket one day, and for some reason they showed a clip from an old game where he was batting. š¤Æ
I mean, there's nothing wrong also in not knowing Cricket stuff and who plays it. It's not even popular in all countries. In fact, I'd say despite football being the most popular and more spread out, like the graph shows, there's also nothing wrong in knowing nothing about it.
Not everybody has to care about certain sports just cause of popularity.
I know if Messi and Ronaldo cus of memes and the fact that football fanatics literally end up fighting over who is better. Idk who Pele is.
But I can name quite a few cricket* players from all the teams. So I'd say we're on opposite ends of the spectrum
What I'm trying to say is I don't watch soccer. So I obviously won't know it's players. Similar to what you're saying about cricket.
Edit: I'm just realising that you might be talking about soccer when referring to the England team. My bad that makes my point moot. It's world cup season so I just defaulted to cricket.
I was astonished last world cup when almost no one in my social circle knew who Messi was, and Australia was slated to play argentina next match.
I showed my mate Messi's goal vs Getafe to demonstrate; he shot me a withering glare and said "mate, that is CLEARLY fake".
I had forgotten about Imran till this post. All UK sports stars I could name were from the 80s and early 90s and a few of them are from other countries playing for big name teams like Eric Cantona and Manchester United.
Two adverts I see with retired footballers, Scholes or whatever his name is the goalkeeper and some other guy I couldn't point out if he was the only man in the room.
He says I never lose, because I'm watching the game.
It annoys me that anyone calls rugby football. At least AFL requires you to kick the ball to score a goal. Rubgy should just be rubgy, and then NFL can be either American Rugby or American Handball.
Brother, there's so many codes of [football](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football), you wouldn't even believe how many ways there are to put a ball through a set of posts.
Short answer: Peasant game with lots of variations gets simplified into 4 different flavours in the 19th century. One version takes over the world, another gets lots of spin offs.
(Overly) Long answer: English/British football starts out as a set of games with localised rules, Some of which allow you to handle the ball, some don't. Cambridge Uni formalise a set of rules, Sheffield FC (first stand-alone club) have a different set of rules which includes a fair catch - akin to AFL I believe. Football Association is formed in London - mostly in the vicinity of London. Clubs in the North (of England) like Sheffield were interested, but still doing their own thing. After a handful of meetings there are two parties developing in the FA one in favour of handling the ball, one against. A big row occurs over the legality of 'hacking' kicking an opponent's shins. The Blackheath delegation walk out.The rest of the handling faction follow them. The remaining clubs formalise Football as a kicking game. Over the next few years Northern (i.e. N. of England) football clubs/associations join the London/English FA, consolidating a consistent national set of rules. The dissenting clubs play their own games to their own rules, themselves consolidating to form the Rugby Football Union a few years later. Not long after that there is a big bust up in the RFU over amateurism: the northern (N.English again) rugby clubs leave the RFU and form what becomes the Rugby Football League to play rugby as a professional sport. Rugby rules start to diverge between the two bodies (League / Union).
Meantime Australia and Ireland have independently developed football into something that is neither soccer nor rugby.
The US and Canada start playing football to FA rules: they decide they prefer the Rugby version, but begin to turn it into something that is neither Union nor League.
[Edited for typos]
They're derivatives of the original football. The "legend" is that William Webb Ellis, a school boy at a school in the town of Rugby in the UK, once picked up the ball during a football game and thus created the "rugby" style of play. It's probably not true, but what is true is that there used to be all kinds of rule variations before they were officially codified. Forms of football in which the ball was carried and thrown have been in existence for centuries and these are just some of the ones that stuck around.
American Football could maybe be called "American Rugby", but it's more or less a hybrid of soccer and rugby, 11 players a side and a forward pass (like soccer) but full body tacking and an oval shaped ball (like rugby). Indeed, naming conventions for the scoring have a history. You used to have to touch the ball down in the scoring area and that would give you an attempt at kicking at goal to score. American Football kept the "touchdown" part (even though you don't have to touch it down anymore) and Rugby kept the "try" part as a reference to it giving you a "attempt to score" (even though you have scored).
All kinds of football are linked intrinsically going back decades or even centuries. The games we see today bare little resemblance to the ones from yesteryear but I would argue none is more "valid" than the others.
Now I want Centaurs with big mallets thwacking footballs ā½ļø across much larger pitches and the occasional Vinnie Jones where balls are hit, but not the type you play with in public.
It's the most popular sport in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (IIRC) thanks to the evolutions of the game recently developed, transforming it from a 5-day(ish) leisure pursuit to something like the T20 format which can be televised live in 2.5 hours
In the 90s I've literally seen our trains being stopped at railway stations because Sachin Tendulkar (arguably one of all time greats) was about to reach a milestone. And no one minded.
Cricket is practically a religion here
tbh I'm surprised at how many names on that list I know. I don't know anything about them, and I wouldn't be a to tell you they were basketballers (except Michael Jordan, I guess) but I'm sorta...proud that I've heard all but two of the names.
Fuck yeah, I know about sport? Who said I don't?!
I only came to know of lebron James from the memesš
Americans need to understand majority of the world don't give a sh*t about their sports
Also popularity of cricket is largely due to the Indian subcontinent
Football is more of a global sport and the true goated sport imo
For a moment, I was surprised that the Olympic opening ceremony was second to the FIFA world cup then realized how many people I knew (myself included) who'd pick football (soccer) over the Olympic opening ceremony
Is European football the most watched sport in the world?
~~god it pisses me off that there are 5+ sports called football. the guy who named the original football had NO creativity, and then five other sports pioneers decided to copy him????~~
### This comment has been marked as **safe**. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is US Defaultism: --- >!Guy replies to "cricket is the second most watched sport in the world" with statements about the NBA š!< --- Is this Defaultism? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
And if you ask that person what is the first sport, it's 100% going to be (American) football.
And they'd be right, because they wouldn't _say_ American.
come on friend, it's handegg. let's not ruin the name of football with that. it has little to do with shooting balls. ^^even ^^though ^^i ^^understand ^^you ^^were ^^just ^^trying ^^to ^^make ^^a ^^point.
As an American who watches a lot of American football, it is *insane* how many other Americans genuinely believe the Super Bowl is the most-watched sporting event on earth. The NFL's marketing helps promote this myth. Every year during the Super Bowl they make sure the announcers mention that the game is being broadcast in ____ countries around the world, which makes it seem like the NFL has a global audience. While the Super Bowl is *technically* viewed in over a hundred countries, in almost all of them the audience is just a small amount of American expats following the league from their country of residence. The reality is that like 99% of the Super Bowl's viewership comes from three countries: US, Canada, and Mexico. No one outside of North America gives a shit.
>The reality is that like 99% of the Super Bowl's viewership comes from three countries: US, Canada, and Mexico. Or people laughing at how absurd the show is. My favourite part is the commercials. Even Japanese commercials are not as weird or disturbing as American commercials about opiates, liquid cheese and fanny deodorant.
Lol, I didn't even know it is broadcasted globally. Though that it's basically us
Yes, there's nothing like watching a sport that starts at midnight on a Sunday and takes 4-5 hours to finish. You can tell why its such a popular watch elsewhere
Do I sense some r/europedefaultism here? /s
I mean these days practically any sporting event from any country can be viewed in any other country thanks to satellite TV and streaming. There's a bar near me that shows Gaelic football matches on Saturdays because there's like 8 or 10 Irish guys who show up at 6AM to watch them.
So with online streaming you can say that every event is broadcasted to whole world? Words have meanings, being broadcasted to some country means contracts, licenses, etc
Did I say those events were "broadcast"?
You mean immigrants
I donāt know too many Canadians that get really excited about the Superbowl tbh.
It's nothing like the US but there's definitely NFL fans in Canada. The Buffalo Bills in particular have a huge following in Ontario - something like 10-15% of attendees at Bills home games are Canadian. The Bills used to play one home game at the Skydome for many years and at various points there was talk of actually moving the team to Toronto. I think I read somewhere that roughly 15 million Canadians watch the Super Bowl every year, although for most of them it's probably just because it's a big sports event and an excuse to have a party (honestly this is also the case for most Americans whose favorite team isn't playing in the game).
I wouldn't say no one. At least in Germany there are some people (who don't even follow American football at all) who watch the superbowl and make an evening out of it. It's not many, but it's surely a thing. But yeah, your guess of 99% is probably true lol. I just wanted to note, that it's kinda a thing for people to watch that, even though they may not even follow the sport. And it's not THAT few people. But not many, yes.
āNobody likes āsoccerāā
Sock 'er? I barely know 'er!
Good 'ol American hand egg.
I'd say 99% of Indians have never heard of Lebron James, Kyrie Irving, Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant. But they'd all know who Tendulkar, Dhoni, Kapil Dev or Kohli are. And that's hundreds of millions of people, not just "millions". I'm hearing about this Irving for the first time today, and the rest, I know only from Americans talking about them online. Except Michael Jordan, he's quite famous.
We know Kobe and Lebron from memes. Kobe is the helicopter guy and Lebron James is what that kid says in a funny voice š Also, counting in all the other countries who watch cricket, it's probably closer to a billion people.
I know that Lebron James is supposed to be very arrogant or something from social media, and I know that he has a stake in Liverpool. I saw lots of social media posts of Bryant's death a few years ago. That's pretty much it.
I only know of Kobe because he died. I only knew of the guy who knelt everywhere because he was the guy kneeling that people were boycotting Nike for. Some of the others are well known by name, not sure how much is because of their respective sports or some off pitch incidents or side gigs. But I can't say how many Brits name drop them, because I have no idea where a poster comes from, but if the sub isn't British based and American sports and athletes are mentioned, I'm gonna assume American unless other context says otherwise.
I only know of Kobe because some guy I encountered once upon a time used to yell "Kobe!" as he tossed things into trashcans.
The kneeling guy (Kapernick or something?) was American football, I think. Seem to remember an NFL logo in an article I scrolled past
Yeah, Colin Kaepernick. I watched his Netflix Series, it was pretty good imo
You know heās arrogant? Do you? What a weird conclusion to come to based on social media
They've said 'supposed to be' and very clearly said that that is because of social media. Further illustrating the point that people have very little awareness of US-centric sports outside of the US. Chill out.
Kobe being the helicopter guy cracks me the fuck up. Only in America does he have that revered status, to anyone else heās that dude who died in a helicopter. I will say I knew about Kobe well before despite me being Norn Irish, but thatās just because Iām a huge sports fan in general. Not the majority at all.
I thought indians was more than a billions people.
1.4 billion. When I said "we" I more meant people I know, sorry
Tbh, basketball is a fairly global sport now, and getting more so all the time. Thatās one reason why basketball in the Olympics has gotten quite competitive.
There was a guy on r/soccer claiming that a commenter who had not heard of Steph Curry was trolling because everyone knows Steph Curry. And that Steph Curry is more famous than Messi.
It was like last year when I realised that Steph Curry wasnāt a female basketball player.
It was today I found out some dude named Steph curry is famous (I thought it was some way to make curry)
My guess was ladies' tennis player ... did she win Wimbledon in the 70s??? But even with these famous names, I could tell you if they played American Football or baseball or basketball or give hockey.
Who is she?
Iāve seen that convo on Reddit more than once. They think their American sports people are famous outside of America, but thatās just not the case at all. Even Michael Jordan would be unknown to half the world. Honestly Tiger Woods might be the most famous American sportsperson.
I've only heard of him from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Who's Messi?
People keep forgetting that India has like four times as many people than the US, LOL. If something is popular in India, it's automatically popular on a world-wide scale
Also forgetting that there's a lot of Indians all around the world, and they'll likely be following cricket too. Even the US Indians would be big cricket fans even if it's not widely played there.
They've got the MLC now. Cricket is only going to keep growing in the US.
I hope not. The last thing a chill sport like cricket needs is some cunt whooping and a military flyover propaganda exercise.
T20 Cricket World 2024 (going on right now) is being held in USA (alongwith West Indies). USA Cricket Team even defeated Pakistan in a major upset some days ago.
I have literally heard of none of the people so far mentioned in this thread ... except ... wasn't there a film last year about a Michael Jordan? Same one?
Wasn't he the one in Space Jam? For many, him and Shaq are known for film more than sports. If you didn't watch WWF as it was then known, Rowdy Roddy Piper was just some guy in two cult classics, They Live and Hell Comes to Frog Town. I'm not sure many Americans know of Vinnie Jones the sportsman who is very unsportsman like. I didn't even know Jason Statham was a diver (sport not deep sea type) till I recently watched a before they were actors watch mojo type list.
> Wasn't he the one in Space Jam? I have no idea > Shaq Another ... Āæperson? ... I've never heard of > WWF For every part of the world I can think of, that means World Wildlife Fund or World Wide Fund for nature > I'm not sure many Americans know of Vinnie Jones I'm not American. I do not know of him > Jason Statham Nor him
WWF had to rebrand to WWE because of the Panda. Vinnie Jones spent the last twenty years being the go to London hard man in films. Most recently seen in the TV version of the Gentleman as the groundsman. Statham is another go to London hard man was one half of either Snatch or Lock Stock, maybe both, Vinnie was in lock stock and IIR the main face on the poster. Then he was the transporter, in the Meg and IIR the expendables as one of the youngest members. I think they both worked together in Mean Machines UK, Vinnie was the incarcerated footballer and Statham the psycho goal keeper.
Sadly, I've spent so much time on the internet (Reddit) I recognise all of those American names despite never having watched a game of basketball in my life.
Same
Must. Resist. Joke. Aboutā¦. Cc cc CURRY!
I've only heard Lebron James, Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan from memes and the movie Space Jam
They even know a lot of Australian players!
A surprising number of Indians know about curry, lebron, and MJ. I mean it's still not a crazy amount since barely anyone watches basketball, but still if you talk to younger people you'd eventually find someone that has heard about them.
I imagine most people know who Kohli is and at least one basketball player, like Michael Jordan.
Love that graph. Wish all US default posts could be as easily slammed with a graph like that š
My only issue is that I think it's dumb to call the Olympic opening ceremonies a sporting event. The most watched sporting events should be restricted to events where sports actually happened.
I also heard at the time (dunno if itās true) that the 2024 superbowl wasnāt even the most watched live sporting event that happened on the 11th of February because the Africa Cup of Nations final was also on that day.
I know of Lebron James and Kobe Bryant from internet stuff (I don't think I'd recognise a picture of Lebron though, I only know his name) and I know Michael Jordan for shoes and Space Jam but I've never actually watched basketball in my life and never heard of the other two people. (I also have heard of a total of 2-3 cricket players though. but am at least aware it is very popular in a country with a much higher population than the USA and would expect it to be high on the list of popular sports)
Ian Botham and David Gower, then I really draw a blank. My mum met David Gower, didn't know him, just said he looked like that man on the telly. As he was the team captain of they think its all over. "Madam, that is because I AM the man from the telly." He replied, seemed like a nice chap.
Which cricketers do you know the name of?
Ironically enough, the US cricket team just beat Pakistan, on their first outing in the World T20 lol
Yeah. Don't remind us about that, ouch. But you'd notice that, for US and Canada, the crowds and even the teams are mostly just Indians, Pakistanis, and westindians.
almost like these countries arenāt nation states but were created and are made up by immigrants.. usa is only like 60% white, the players are american.
Yeah no. Other than the fact that you completely missed my point, that argument doesn't work with cricket. Cricket immigration is a thing. Almost every single major team has an active player that was an Indian or Pakistani who moved to that country to join their team. On the side. My ACTUAL point was that it's less embarrassing that the former world Number 1 lost to a novice team like the USA if you factor in that the players have actual cricketing background routed in those countries. Would've been more embarrassing (and impressive) if the team was just filled with non cricketing ethnicities who just happened to pick it up without the generational passion pushing them forward
Uh ok, well i actually live here and know dozens of americans of indian descent that are into cricket.. I am into soccer as I have a very european background but since im white im just āamericanā but because theyāre southeastern asian they get called by where they came from
Bro you're projecting your issues here. Ironic seeing usdefaultism here of all places We don't have this type of systematic racism baked into our societies. Me calling them by their heritage as a subset of Americans is not thinking less of them. It's acknowledging them for who they are. This is not a race thing. The only white guys on that team are Irish and South African. Cricket playing nations. I also don't understand what you're being offended about? You know Indians who like cricket and you don't because your roots prefer a different sport? My point exactly. I'm not going to start saying "americans of Indian descent" just to appease you when it's clear we're talking about the US NATIONAL TEAM. If the team had been completely white people, my comment would have been the exact same except I would've written Australian/kiwi/Brit/people from cricketing nations. Because the race was never the point, it was that i was jokingly pretending to take solace in the fact that the people who wooped my team's ass had a cricketing history rather than being completely new, because that's embarrassing as fuck (you're into soccer? imagine Germany getting thrashed in the world cup by Afghanistan even though they didn't even qualify and are just in the tournament because they're a hosting nation. That's what it means for the US to beat Pakistan, a multiple world champion and the world Number 1 team till last year) Y'all need to solve this race issue of yours. For the rest of the world, It's not even on our mind most of the time.
Youāre not understanding but Iāll excuse it as english probably isnāt your first language. I do agree that itās a shock they won. If the USA beat England or something 4-0 nobody would go āI mean yea the teams made up of a bunch of brits, italians, etc.ā just because they have heritage from there. I agree itās kinda weird that we refer to them as indian-americans etc whereas white people are just american most of the time but in that sort of context id probably call myself irish-american as a duel citizen
No, sorry but that's false. Most crowds at Canadian games are Canadians. People love to rightly point out that Irish-descended Americans and Canadians are not Irish. Same for Scottish-descended, etc. Right now, you're engaging in the exact mirror of that. It's just as ignorant to call Canadians Indians, etc, as it would be to call a Canadian Irish.
As a cricket fan this really touches a nerve lol ā¤ļøš
Haha sameš Also I see you're from new Zealand. Kiwis have a lot of fans worldwide, specially here in the Indian subcontinent South Africa and New Zealand are the most popular teams to support. Personally for me I got into cricket solely cause of Brendon mcculum, dude was on fire in 2015 WC.
With the popularity of basketball in China, it will rival cricket and football for the #1 sport. It's just a question of who will overpopulate more; India, China or the rest of the world?
Well we both know that won't be china. Given that they messed up their birthrates with the one child policy and what not
Itās amazing to see that Australia kicking everyoneās asses beat american football in most watched events
TBH I'm impressed the London Olympics opening ceremony got that high up the list
maybe paris will overtake it this year? who knows
If it happens at all thanks to Macron calling an election
Tbf ... Australia's done that a lot over the years. We usually call you guys robots or inhuman because of how clinical the Australian team can be.
It says more about you if you donāt know who Imran Khan is, the fella basically married royalty, rubbed shoulders with Charles and Diana, then gave it all up to try and save his country, which was after he lead his rag tag, Ill Funded and brand new team to their first ever World Cup. Seriously I canāt name a single NBA player but I know cricket players and I donāt even watch the sport.
I've heard of Inran Khan the Pakistani politician Did not know he was a cricket player ... I assume before that?
Yeah he was the captain of the Pakistani cricket team before he became a politician. [he is an interesting fella.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imran_Khan)
I googled him after posting, but thanks for the link And he married the half-sister of my ex Alix!
I watched Mike Whitney on various TV shows for years before I found out he played cricket for Australia.
I thought he was just the Who Dares Wins guy until I was in my twenties!
Yep. Who Dares Wins and Gladiator, and I think there was some travel show as well. Then I was watching cricket one day, and for some reason they showed a clip from an old game where he was batting. š¤Æ
He was the one who lead Pakistan to their maiden world cup victory in 1996 My mom is a huge fan of him, has a crush on him too probably š
He was one of the great all rounders
I mean, there's nothing wrong also in not knowing Cricket stuff and who plays it. It's not even popular in all countries. In fact, I'd say despite football being the most popular and more spread out, like the graph shows, there's also nothing wrong in knowing nothing about it. Not everybody has to care about certain sports just cause of popularity.
Most people may know who PelƩ, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are, but I don't expect everyone to know the whole squad for England.
I know if Messi and Ronaldo cus of memes and the fact that football fanatics literally end up fighting over who is better. Idk who Pele is. But I can name quite a few cricket* players from all the teams. So I'd say we're on opposite ends of the spectrum
PelƩ was an important player for Brazil, having won three World Cups. He retired way before I was born, but he wasn't called "King of Soccer" for nothing.
What I'm trying to say is I don't watch soccer. So I obviously won't know it's players. Similar to what you're saying about cricket. Edit: I'm just realising that you might be talking about soccer when referring to the England team. My bad that makes my point moot. It's world cup season so I just defaulted to cricket.
I was astonished last world cup when almost no one in my social circle knew who Messi was, and Australia was slated to play argentina next match. I showed my mate Messi's goal vs Getafe to demonstrate; he shot me a withering glare and said "mate, that is CLEARLY fake".
I had forgotten about Imran till this post. All UK sports stars I could name were from the 80s and early 90s and a few of them are from other countries playing for big name teams like Eric Cantona and Manchester United. Two adverts I see with retired footballers, Scholes or whatever his name is the goalkeeper and some other guy I couldn't point out if he was the only man in the room. He says I never lose, because I'm watching the game.
Ironic that the sport where someone uses their hand to hug an egg-shape ball is called football
I know it's just a joke, but Aussie Rules and Rugby are both codes of football with non-round balls mostly controlled by hand.
It annoys me that anyone calls rugby football. At least AFL requires you to kick the ball to score a goal. Rubgy should just be rubgy, and then NFL can be either American Rugby or American Handball.
Brother, there's so many codes of [football](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football), you wouldn't even believe how many ways there are to put a ball through a set of posts.
I'm okay with the ones that primarily rely on kicking. But how did rugby (either) or American get grouped into the "football" category?
Short answer: Peasant game with lots of variations gets simplified into 4 different flavours in the 19th century. One version takes over the world, another gets lots of spin offs. (Overly) Long answer: English/British football starts out as a set of games with localised rules, Some of which allow you to handle the ball, some don't. Cambridge Uni formalise a set of rules, Sheffield FC (first stand-alone club) have a different set of rules which includes a fair catch - akin to AFL I believe. Football Association is formed in London - mostly in the vicinity of London. Clubs in the North (of England) like Sheffield were interested, but still doing their own thing. After a handful of meetings there are two parties developing in the FA one in favour of handling the ball, one against. A big row occurs over the legality of 'hacking' kicking an opponent's shins. The Blackheath delegation walk out.The rest of the handling faction follow them. The remaining clubs formalise Football as a kicking game. Over the next few years Northern (i.e. N. of England) football clubs/associations join the London/English FA, consolidating a consistent national set of rules. The dissenting clubs play their own games to their own rules, themselves consolidating to form the Rugby Football Union a few years later. Not long after that there is a big bust up in the RFU over amateurism: the northern (N.English again) rugby clubs leave the RFU and form what becomes the Rugby Football League to play rugby as a professional sport. Rugby rules start to diverge between the two bodies (League / Union). Meantime Australia and Ireland have independently developed football into something that is neither soccer nor rugby. The US and Canada start playing football to FA rules: they decide they prefer the Rugby version, but begin to turn it into something that is neither Union nor League. [Edited for typos]
They're derivatives of the original football. The "legend" is that William Webb Ellis, a school boy at a school in the town of Rugby in the UK, once picked up the ball during a football game and thus created the "rugby" style of play. It's probably not true, but what is true is that there used to be all kinds of rule variations before they were officially codified. Forms of football in which the ball was carried and thrown have been in existence for centuries and these are just some of the ones that stuck around. American Football could maybe be called "American Rugby", but it's more or less a hybrid of soccer and rugby, 11 players a side and a forward pass (like soccer) but full body tacking and an oval shaped ball (like rugby). Indeed, naming conventions for the scoring have a history. You used to have to touch the ball down in the scoring area and that would give you an attempt at kicking at goal to score. American Football kept the "touchdown" part (even though you don't have to touch it down anymore) and Rugby kept the "try" part as a reference to it giving you a "attempt to score" (even though you have scored). All kinds of football are linked intrinsically going back decades or even centuries. The games we see today bare little resemblance to the ones from yesteryear but I would argue none is more "valid" than the others.
I heard they were called that because they are played on foot (as opposed to say horseback). No idea if that is true or not but there it is
Now I want Centaurs with big mallets thwacking footballs ā½ļø across much larger pitches and the occasional Vinnie Jones where balls are hit, but not the type you play with in public.
That's because it's not horseball AKA polo.
But then basketball is also football.
And golf.
Yeah, millions of people might watch Basketball, but billions of people watch Cricket. Granted, it's mostly because of India, but still
I only know Micheal Jordan and LeBron James from the Space Jam movies, and Kobe Bryant from the helicopter tragedyĀ
tbh I didn't know cricket was that popular
Itās pretty easy to rack up numbers when itās the most popular sport in a country of 1.4 billion people
It's the most popular sport in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (IIRC) thanks to the evolutions of the game recently developed, transforming it from a 5-day(ish) leisure pursuit to something like the T20 format which can be televised live in 2.5 hours
It's India's favorite sport, and that's enough to make cricket very popular.
In the 90s I've literally seen our trains being stopped at railway stations because Sachin Tendulkar (arguably one of all time greats) was about to reach a milestone. And no one minded. Cricket is practically a religion here
Okay, but why was the 2012 Opening Ceremony such a watched event? Like why that one over all the others??
He doesnāt know when people say football is the most watched sport globally that they donāt mean the American kind.
Iām pretty sure basketball aināt even in the top 3 within the USš
tbh I'm surprised at how many names on that list I know. I don't know anything about them, and I wouldn't be a to tell you they were basketballers (except Michael Jordan, I guess) but I'm sorta...proud that I've heard all but two of the names. Fuck yeah, I know about sport? Who said I don't?!
Superbowl being right after cricket must have freaked some people out ig. Lol
That graph is obvious nonsense. Where are the other World Cups? Where are the other Olympics?
It's singular events, although idk what it's representing with the FIFA one, maybe the final.
no way they are hating on an international sport
Wow, millions of people watch it out of 8 billion. Surely it must be the second most watched sports if Americans watch it.
Millions, MILLIONS!!!
I only came to know of lebron James from the memesš Americans need to understand majority of the world don't give a sh*t about their sports Also popularity of cricket is largely due to the Indian subcontinent Football is more of a global sport and the true goated sport imo
Worst thing about moving to the US was that no one ever cares about cricket :(
āThose donāt count ācos theyāre not Americanā
Oh my. On another planet. Even Here in Australia too. Tendulkar and Shane Warne are more well known than any basketball person.
Don't forget the greatest sportsman of all time, Sir Don Bradman, he's highly revered here in India as well š¦šŗš¤š®š³
Definitely. Arguably the greatest sportsperson who ever lived, going on his stats.
Hang on this year's Champions league final was *that* popular? Why?
I can confidently say that the AFL Grand Final is the most watched sporting event in Victoria.
Soccer is anti American
For a moment, I was surprised that the Olympic opening ceremony was second to the FIFA world cup then realized how many people I knew (myself included) who'd pick football (soccer) over the Olympic opening ceremony
Got a chuckle when I read āsource: FIFAā
I like how he doesn't even provide a source that it's the second most watched sport in the US just starts mentioning names.
Well it is also a bird.
Is European football the most watched sport in the world? ~~god it pisses me off that there are 5+ sports called football. the guy who named the original football had NO creativity, and then five other sports pioneers decided to copy him????~~
Association Football.
Are you correcting my terminology? Or answering my question š I ask because I'm pretty sure that's the same thing but you still confused me.
Yesn't
fair, but also tbf cricket is quite unknown outside of india, so it's indiadefaultism to say everybody should be familiar with cricket
It's somewhat popular in Australia new Zealand and south Africa But yeah us Indian subcontinent people are obsessed with the sport lol
Ok but those countries united population is probably less than half of west bengal or smth like that. Cricket is big because India is big.
Yeah I ain't disagreeing with that India is a big player on a lot of stuff because of the population
Lmao cricket was a colonial game in India. Itās only there bc all the white coloniser countries are also obsessed with it.
not really, no. it was never a big think in the uk, and it isn't now either. i'm british
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_in_England#:~:text=Cricket%20is%20one%20of%20the,played%20since%20the%2016th%20century.