Chickenboy -> RE: Pulling for Lokasenna's Nats (10/23/2019 2:32:20 PM)
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ORIGINAL: obvert quote:
ORIGINAL: Ian R What sport are you guys talking about? The world series - is that like a world cup competition? Haha! I see you're from Sydney, and I assume you're taking the piss, but maybe not? It's true that baseball exists in other countries, but it's decidedly an American centric game with a long history. Professional teams had a lore and mystique about them, players were legends, long before other countries took up the sport and began leagues of their own, mostly through American influence in those places (like Japan, where an American academic introduced the game in the 1870s, and many Carribean countries). So the World Series is an American professional sports event, but these are the best professional teams in the world. The highest attendance per game played is the NFL, with 68,776 average attendance per game. Nobody else is even close. Second is the Bundesliga (Germany) with a mere 43,500. MLB per game attendance is 30,346, which places it fifth on the per game attendance chart. However, since there are 162 games in an MLB season (versus 16+ for NFL), the total annual attendance at MLB games is 73.3MM. Second on that list is NPB (Japanese baseball) at 22.8MM. Where does 'soccer' rank? A pathetic 6th place, with EPL (UK) with only 13.3MM. That's lower than the two aforementioned baseball attendance figures. Lower than the NBA. Lower than NFL. Lower than NHL (Hockey). So, baseball games are hugely popular globally. Point of fact. Baseball is a popular game in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Japan and other countries. Sure, it's probably not as universally played on playgrounds and whatnot as 'soccer' is around the world. But to say that it's not a global enterprise and is invisible except to Americans is ignorant. https://www.businessinsider.com/attendance-sports-leagues-world-2015-5 Here's 2018 figures below. I hadn't appreciated how high the attendance for AAA and AA baseball is domestically. AAA baseball is in 'danger' of eclipsing some of the European soccer leagues soon. I had also omitted the popularity of baseball in Korea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attendance_figures_at_domestic_professional_sports_leagues
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