In my country, Israel, a lot of people play basketball but it’s not more popular than football in any region or city

25 comments

  1. Basketball is probably the second most popular sport so a lot of people play it but football is still #1 and by a huge margin

  2. In parts of the Highlands and Islands shinty is arguably more popular (and a far more interesting game in my opinion, although I’ve never played it), in some of the south of Scotland rugby is possibly more popular than football.

  3. Ice hockey is the most popular and basketball the second most popular sport to be fans of Latvia. But football is probably the most played (by the average person) team sport because all it requires is a ball and more or less level field.

  4. I would say that football takes third or fourth place in Ireland behind hurling, rugby and Gaelic football in the south and Gaelic football and rugby in the northern part of the country.

  6. People play rugby a lot in south western France, it’s kind of the main sport there afaik.

    Pétanque and Basket Ball are seen but nowhere near like football.

  8. By now, football has been the be all and end all pretty much everywhere for quite some time.

    However, we do have a few places where it traditionally only played second fiddle, and where other sports are still extremely important.

    Handball used to be the other big sport (and in a way still is). It kind of developed into the sport of the small to medium sized towns for a while. Places like Flensburg (90 000 inhabitants) or Lemgo (40 000) are still very much handball towns. Often you’ll find a whole handball region (Ostwestfalen-Lippe is one, for example). The local companies were big enough to sponsor Bundesliga handball teams, but not big enough for the kind of money you’d need to finance a professional football team.
    It helps if the highest-playing regional football team is a bit shit, too 😉

    Later imports like basketball or ice hockey are distributed more evenly.

    A lot of older sports are dying out, though. Faustball is probably not going to survive for much longer, even though there used to be regions where it was the big thing in the past.

  9. Cricket is fairly common on the football off season, Wales and the West Country love rugby, parts of the North likes a different kind of rugby, tennis is popular one week a year, horse racing is somewhat popular for gambling and we pretend to care about rowing for one day of the year for the Oxbridge boat race

  10. For sure Ice hockey. Handball and Basketball are also played. Pretty minor though.
    And hey, we just had a team win the European American Football League haha.

  11. In the Netherlands football is definitely the most popular sport, but I guess not everywhere.

    In posh/rich towns field hockey is probably a bit more popular then football. Places like Wassenaar, Bloemendaal and the region of ‘t Gooi.

    Besides that maybe someone from Friesland can compare football and speed skating? The latter is very popular there but I don’t know how it compares to football. Same question for cycling in South Limburg.

  12. Skiing is very popular and a big part of Norwegian culture. The ski slopes are usually packed on weekends in the winter. Cross country and alpine are propably the most popular forms of skiing here. A lot of people also play handball.

  13. Rugby, athletics, volley, basketball, baseball, shooting, swimming disciplines, martial arts

    hell, there was also a medieval sword-fighting club as far as I remember

    also every classroom at school had that kid/girl who was at agonist level in some sport

    (I was an amateur basket player myself, 30-40 kg ago…)

  14. Rugby is played widely across Wales, particularly in the South.

    Below the current regional setup at the top level, there are probably hundreds of rugby clubs across South Wales.

    In 2015 referee Nigel Owens went from refereeing the Rugby World Cup Final to [officiating at a local match between two village teams](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-34693283) just a week later.

  16. Due to climate, football is generally a sport for only the southern third of Sweden. Further north, ice hockey is the biggest sport, in towns such as Luleå, Skellefteå, Örnsköldsvik and Timrå who all have large ice hockey clubs. The same goes for some towns in central Sweden, like Karlstad, Gävle and Leksand. But even in some towns in southern Sweden ice hockey is bigger than football – such as in Ängelholm here in Scania, with the current European Champions Hockey League masters Rögle.

    In particular in southern and western Sweden, there are also some towns where handball is bigger than football – in Scania for example, Kristianstad, Ystad and Lund are big handball towns. Handball is also quite big in the Greater Gothenburg area – but football is still even bigger there, and ice hockey is big in Gothenburg as well.

  17. In Czechia, Ice hockey, Football are the big ones, but handball is surprisingly popular too. Volleyball and canoeing as well, and then there is cultural “sports”, like Hiking and countryside cycling, same as our German neighbors, or skiing, though most people now travel to Slovakia or Austria for the good pistes.

  18. Sweden can be pretty diverse regarding regional sports culture.

    Hockey: All over the country

    Bandy: Used to be a big winter sport, but as hockey became more popular in the 20th century many bandy clubs transitioned to hockey in the cities. It kept a cult following in “Middle Sweden”. [Here’s a map](https://i.imgur.com/xjw3hkn.png) of the current teams in the top division – many of these clubs are in very small communities.

    Handball: [A clear southern bias](https://i.imgur.com/pPIPe2D.png), at least professionally.

    Floorball: Another popular sport to play all over the country and professionals teams are a bit all over.

    Skiing: The more inland around the mountains, closer to the border to siphon skill from Norwegians, the better. [Östersund](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96stersund) is a popular city for outdoors culture, but the province of Dalarna in general is great for this.

    Speedway: Popular motorsport around Middle Sweden and more inland. Tracks are usually found in rural settings.

    **EDIT**: Is Orienteering even a thing in southern Sweden? It was very easy to get into that during my childhood in Gästrikland/Dalarna/Norway because of the terrain and a fairly widespread culture for it.

  19. I’m not sure about other regions but motor speedway is more popular in Lubuskie voivodeship.

    There’re also probably some smaller towns where volleyball might be more popular.

  20. According to some sources, in Finland the TOP 3 of sports are ice hockey, track and field and skiing. Football is still quite popular and gaining popularity still.

  22. Football is the most popular sport but far from the only sport. I live in a small village but besides a football club we have a tennis club, handball club and futsall club as well. And we have a swimming pool. And this is only my small village. You also have a lot of gyms either to a workout but also sports like judo.

    Than there are people who do a sport without joining a club. Running is very popular, race cycling is popular. Mountain biking is popular as well.

    As for me, I played football and tennis. No I am older and like to hike and I am planning to buy a mtb and cycle on mtb tracks.

    I don’t think sports a particular to a certain area. It’s more like what kind of sports is offered in your village or neighborhood. No that I think of, some sports are more popular among certain groups. Like rich people play field hockey. Kickboxing is popular in the cities among migrants. And so on.

  23. In some parts of the country hockey is more popular than football. But it’s pretty much one of the two wherever you go.

    Interestingly the sport with the most members in clubs is shooting, but I guess that’s mainly because it’s easier to get all of the permits you need if you’re in a club. While for football or hockey all you need is a few friends, no formal club membership required.

  24. Oh yes. Ice Hockey is far more popular and Football is second. After that i believe it’s Finnish Baseball, Cross Country skiing, Volleyball and Floorball.

  25. Nah, i am from Spain, football is absolute king.

    Basketball, tennis, pádel, badminton, volleyball are all reasonibally popular, but none of them are even close to football

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