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What is the third most popular sport in the world?
Question
#103182. Asked by Swingking2. (Feb 20 09 2:49 AM)
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looney_tunes
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This is a very hard thing to pin down. If 'most popular' is defined as having the most participating players, the question is more precise, but still slippery. The site at the link below is the result of contacting the International Federations of all sports claiming to be the most popular or second most popular in the world, and asking them to provide statistics about participants. The results are shown as
1. Volleyball (nearly 1 billion players)
2. Basketball (400 million players)
3. Table Tennis (300 million people)
4. Soccer (242 million people)
HOWEVER, they the add some notes as to the reliability of these figures.
"FIVB claims nearly 1billion people play volleyball in the world. One out of every six people. That's really interesting... When questioned, they backed off that statement to say that there are 33 million registered players, but that there are many more than that who are recreational players (obviously, but not 1 billion...). They also stated that there are definitely not four times the amount of volleyball players as soccer players in the world, which basically refuted their initial statement."
FIBA claims over 400 million people play basketball in the world, or one in every twelve men, women, and children, and senior citizens (over 500 million worldwide). This seems a little odd... When questioned, FIBA did not respond. The Jr. NBA states that they feel that the number is 'a little high'."
And, if we want to talk about popularity in terms of those who watch the sport, "Formula One Racing has the largest television viewing audience in the world with just the Formula One championship bringing in 40 billion viewers annually. Considering there are only 6 Billion people in the world, less than half with television sets, and only a fraction of those caring about Formula One racing, that's quite a few... When questioned, the FIA did not respond."
 http://www.johann-sandra.com/popular.htm
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