Football is one of the most popular sports in the United States. An opinion poll conducted by Statista showed that 79% of US adults who follow sports said they follow football while only 65% said they follow basketball.
However, while football is the biggest sport in the U.S., basketball is more famous around the world and especially in Europe. Even if soccer stays the number one sport outside of the U.S., basketball is more known to the non-American public than football. But why is that?
Why is basketball so popular around the world while football is only famous in the US ?
First, let’s take a look at the history of both of these sports and where they come from. American football originates from soccer and rugby and was first played in 1869 with two college teams, Rutgers and Princeton. It consisted of 25 players per team and used a round ball that couldn’t be picked up or carried but only be kicked or batted with the feet, hands, head or sides. While the rules were more soccer-style at first, a Harvard-Yale game played under rugby-style rules impressed two Princeton athletes who rapidly introduced the sport to their college.
Soon after, the Intercollegiate Football Association was created with Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia as members. After a few decades of evolution of football, the NFL—the National Football League— established itself as America’s first professional football league in 1922.
Basketball saw light for the first time in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts, by Canadian physical education instructor James Naismith who considered this sport as less-injury-prone than football. Naismith also wanted to find a sport that could be played inside during the cold months of winter.
Although the first professional league was created in 1898, the growth of the sport was fairly slow for much of the early 1900s. It was included in the Olympic Games of 1936 and grew in international popularity following World War II. The National Basketball Association (NBA) was formed in 1949 which marked the beginning of the sport’s cultural importance in the United States.
According to Ben Davis football coach Russ Mann, football wouldn’t have as much popularity outside of the U.S. because of the phenomenon of soccer.
Soccer plays a big role in European countries where people are cradled in the arms of soccer as early as childhood. Moreover, the time difference between the United States and Europe would also make it difficult to bring football to this part of the world.
“There is some football in Canada with the CFL and there are some NFL games that are played in Europe,” Mann said. “There’s been talks about some teams in London but I don’t think that it would go very well. We are already struggling a little bit with the time difference in the U.S. and flying inside the country to play games.”.
Regarding basketball, basketball coach Don Carlisle played professionally in Europe for 12 years.
“I understand that soccer is number one in the world and especially in Europe,” Carlisle said. “I think that it’s a tradition in Europe where people feel more pride supporting a team than here in the United States. In our country, if a team is doing well then people support it but if the team is not doing well, then people support other things.”
Carlisle thinks the popularity of basketball is growing worldwide because foreign stars have been joining the NBA.
“The NBA has grown globally in the last 10 years because of the athletes who come from different parts of the world,” Carlisle said. “As a matter of fact, athletes like Tony Parker who is French, Dirk Nowitzki who is German or Giannis Antetokounmpo who is Greek and Nigerian, are all examples of important foreign players in the NBA.
In conclusion, the reason why basketball is more popular worldwide than football is not very clear. However, the supposition that the culture of sports is simply different between the US and Europe might be the most plausible. Soccer has always played a big role in Europeans’ life and their culture. As American football mixes rules of soccer and rugby, it may explain why Europeans are less interested in that sport while basketball has completely different rules from soccer.
