Why is football the most popular sport?
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Football is the most popular sport in the world. And it's one of the oldest. According to estimates, of the around 7.6 billion people making up the global population in 2018, 1.1 billion of them watched the 2018 World Cup final.
As Jon Mackenzie explains the reason behind football’s popularity may lie in its simplicity. Illustrated by Marco Bevilacqua.
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#worldcup #football - Sport
Urban dictionary said it best:
'The Beautiful Game' can be played anywhere, on almost any surface, by any number of players, for almost any length of time. And is. There is no country on earth that doesn't play. It has inspired more passion, more courage and more excitement than any other sport in history and dwarfs everything else.
Football is, without question, the defining sporting activity of the human race.
Don't know about entertainment factor
Many sports challenge that
@@samarthbagwe1736 Where does it same entertainment
Well some countries can't play it since they're in the fncking desert...
@@flux202 well you cant play other sports there either
@@Hubbabubba465 so we can't be holding world championships in a desert.
I like to think it transcends language. You don't even need to speak the same language to have a kick about with someone. Truly universal.
It's the most accessible out of all the sports anybody of any race any socio economic class any height build can play it's accessibility makes it more marketable to a mass audience not to mention it's the only sport that's played on all six continents and in the islands
Well-explained. Football at its core is the most simple sports in the world. That's why almost everyone, even those with physical disabilities, can enjoy it. Another reason is because it's a team sport so you get to enjoy it with other people.
I think this is a good point about it being a team sport. Most popular sports are team sports, not just football.
i'd also add while a team sport - there are elements you can still do on your own that can be enjoyable, doing tricks or even just using a wall.
I wouldn't say it's the simplest sport, that title belongs to track athletics which boil down to 'run'. I'd say it's about as simple as a game can be to allow for complexity in outcome to arise.
@@ferretchad And also, the fact that feet are used for both move around the field and kick the ball, means that there's a factor of dexterity that doesn't happen if the game was played with the hands (i.e. handball), which would be a "more obvious" ball game.
Exactly 💯 it's the most accessible which makes it the most popular
Football is a universal language.
I vividly remember a random guy kicking a ball in the middle of my university's square.
More and more people joined, barely anyone spoke the same language but we all had fun in a little kick-about.
Anyone can join in and have fun.
You can say that about any game or sport.
@@drrd4127 I can't fully agree with that.
It's rare to find a sport that is so easily accessible.
Most other sports require special equipment to experience the sport. Basketball needs a hoop, tennis needs rackets, cricket/baseball needs bats. With football, all you need is pretty much just a football - you can make goals with piles of coats, bags, bottles or even using chalk on a stone wall.
In a nation where cricket is a religion, and a state where football is non existent in small towns, once i introduced to my friends. Couple of days later there were 20-30 people calling their friends and playing the game. The ground was earlier used for cricket and cricket only but then there were bricks used as goal posts on either end. But unfortunately, it was during a time when high school ended, all of them moved on to different cities for education and the game died there in the town.
big ups!
@@mitooro *So What ???*
@@skoch9995 he was just asking
It didnt died. You released a sport virus
This begs a different question. Why cricket is still so popular in like ... 8 countries.
Another reason is that skill and a certain amount of cleverness and required to play the game at a high level. Many other sports place an over-reliance on physical qualities and brute force. This makes soccer athletically democratic, so to speak.
ehh personally i prefer the brutish athleticism like nfl football
@@jmgonzales7701 Brutish is a bad way of describing it
Football is a religion. No other sport in the world unites people quite like this.
Then why are football fans segregated (like the UK)? Why is there also hooliganism and working class scum causing trouble?
@@crazyforcoffee5950your statement is like :
Why are there still conflicts between islam and islam or even christian and christian ;
Everything have conflicts in it.
@261i7rugby is also boring but yeah is still more entertaining than football
I was transfer student back then in elementary. Hard to adjust to new school life, friends and environment. But once the football game played in school yard, I just jumped into it and scored a goal. This beautiful game really helped me being accepted in new school.
This is so sweet. Reading that made me happy :) futbol really does bring ppl together
Same thing to me
I live in the philippines and basketball is the most favorite sport of the people here but when i was a kid our school didnt have a basketball court and people didnt bring balls to our school so we played football with a bottle filled with rocks, the kids didnt know how to properly play football all we knew was you had a ball and you had to kick it to the other side of the area where we played. It ended up kinda resembling a football game with a keeper and strikers and defenders, crazy stuff. So i really do believe that this is one of the beauties of the game, you can play it everywhere with anything.
the simplicity of it all makes it beautiful. You can literally explain the rules in 30 seconds to a newcomer and they will have fun.
It’s boring to play and watch
@@crazyforcoffee5950 you definitely coming from the US do you
@@crazyforcoffee5950 not really now go back to watch that insignificant sport that they rugby.
@@crazyforcoffee5950 it's boring to watch while it's hella fun to play
@@crazyforcoffee5950 if you not interested in strategy aspect like posession, formation, yes it can be boring
Kind of linked to accessibility: Football is, traditionally, a working person’s sport. In lots of countries it’s played predominantly by “poorer” people, for the reasons mentioned, and we’ve heard loads of stories of pros having first kicked a ball made out of bags tied up with laces or something.
Golf and tennis can be diluted down as well, to a lesser extent (get the he ball in the 🕳) but there is an exclusivity to them and you need a designated space. That’s where class comes in. Many people don’t have access to a tennis court, even fewer have their own one. Everyone has a ball and some space.
Tennis is difficult to dilute. That's really a sport that requires courts and racquets (of some sort), and the balls can't get too old or else they're virtually useless. You could use other sorts of balls, but that makes things harder. Golf is conceptually easier to dilute, but still isn't great. Even basketball needs a hoop of some sort, volleyball needs a high net. Cricket needs a lot, rugby's too rough and big for a street sport, so you come to see that only football and perhaps handball are really so accessible. And for whatever reason, handball isn't that popular. But that's probably down to excitement.
Football is played by poorer people only in Africa ,Asia ,south America
European football is played by rich class mostly
football is not just a game its a need for many to live happily.thats the reason its the most popular game
wouldnt this just be a symptom of its popularity, and not why it is popular
At its core it's really just three rules
1. You have a ball
2. You can't touch it with your hands
3. Who scores more goals wins
It's so mindbogglingly simple. American sports, for the most part, have these weird rules and starts-and-stops that they're essentially institutionalized.
American sports have too many commercial breaks depending on the person that can be annoying football is pretty straightforward and not super long 90 minutes
Couple of bricks as goal posts.. Anywhere to play.. I remember playing on the street.. Paved streets on late hours when cars are scarce.. I even played in corridors in apartment buildings.. You didn't even need a ball.. A tennis ball.. A plastic bag full of old clothes.. Even a small roundish rock or a bottle cap..
You make friends and enemies around your block..
Such a beautiful sport
You forgot the most kicked football of modern times, the humble paper covered in parcel tape football. This football at some point has some how made its way into every work place in the World.
In school we used to use a tin foil ball from our sandwiches and we'd play some panna, and when I was at home I'd use my dog's toys for a little kick around, as the living room and dining room linked with an arch. The dining table was the goal 🤣
I finished growing up watching the NFL and since I started watching multiple sports, Football/soccer is just about to take the number 1 spot, only difference is I live in the U.S and I have Way more people to talk NFL about that soccer, most people I work with can’t understand how popular soccer is world wide
It’s the same here in Australia where AFL and NRL are king. Nobody talks about soccer unless it’s the World Cup. I’m a rugby union fan and soccer to me is a wussy sport
@@crazyforcoffee5950nobody care about your rugby Aussies
There's just something beautiful about the game that I can't explain. If you love it then you know it.
Football is very elegant it kinda looks like a ballet I think that's why I prefer it there is more artistry and it's just beautiful to watch
Brilliant video. Reminds me of when we used to play on the streets when I was younger, we'd lose track of time and get a whooping from our parents when we got home. There were no phones back then so you'd grab a ball, we take off our shoes and go play. Sometimes if we didnt have a ball. We'd steal some plastic bags, put a handful of sand into one (that would make the first layer) and wrap as many as we can to make a ball and play until it was tattered.
I remember when I get older, my parents would get me the Fifa/Nike/Adidas Size 3 ball. I was a King in the neighborhood. I remember how I lost the first 3. One landed in a yard with 3 dogs; they tore it up, Second was run over by a car and one was stolen when I took it to school. Football holds some dear childhood memories. This was around 20 years ago and my father and father in law tell me about their footballing escapades back in their day!
When I was a kid we liked basketball better, but there were limited playgrounds with hoops, which were usually occupied by older kids or even adults, so we mostly played football.
I never thought of that with basketball. I guess in the US you don't because there are hoops everywhere. Multiple ones at parks, playgrounds, schools, people's houses, and when in a pinch monkey bars or some trash cans will do.
@@joeleuer1842beside hoops, you need a ball that can bounce well, while in football all most any kind of ball can be used,
When i was a kid it was a litte hard to buy a standard football ball, so we played with plastic ball, rubber ball and even volley ball (volleyball were popular in my place that time)
A sport that truly tests your athletic ability and doesn’t give you a break in any sort of way makes for great entertainment compared to many sports that are diluted with way more commercials
The accessibility of football is certainly one part of it, but I feel that the reason why association football specifically the #1 game in the world has a lot to do with how association football was popular in the UK during the 1800s-1900s and the British empire and trading network took that around the world. The number of prominent clubs founded in places like Italy, South America and elsewhere by ex-pat Brits shows this. So, football became global as the first sport to really become so, and then things like global radio and then TV embedded that.
The accessibility aspect is probably why football gained prominence in places that were merely connected to rather than part of the Empire - see how the prominent nations in rugby and cricket both correspond pretty closely to the commonwealth to this day (with a few exceptions) and theres maybe a class element there - guys working on ships are more likely to play football, and a pick up gamer on the dock side is more likely to get locals involved and hooked but posher folk putting down roots in their colonies are more likely to establish cricket/rugby clubs etc.
Similarly, those sports that developed in the US ended up being stuck there during the period of US isolationism before WW1 and by the time they could gain a wider audience, football was already established elsewhere (and in general, is more accessible so why change?)
Football is originally Aztec sport.
which is weird, im filipino and normally i hear people argue the reason we don't play football or its not as popular here is because we barely have space or its not as acessible. weird reasoning.
@jmgonzales7701 I guess if you don't already have parks/pitches it's not so easy in an urban environment. I'd guess basketball is the go-to then? Probably the team game needing thr least space.
Once again, another lovely video addressing a simple, yet complex, topic. Been following Tifo Football for over a year now; hoping to see the fellas start a 'Tifo Baseball' channel - I am pretty sure the viewership is out there.
It’s quite popular in England, I know a few people that like it
LMAO
Number 1
I guess in your specific community the percentage of people who were alive and watched it is even higher than in the entire Population. We are here for our love of football and your amazing content regarding that topic after all.
Too bad watching it now on tv has become a financial burden that many people can't afford
When i was young we were so broke we had a hard time finding money for food. I would play after school until sunset outside with my friends right next to a trash dump, we didnt care that we had a a hill and being on top was a major advantage. Now i still own a fancy world cup ball even though i havent played in years, just cause football means so much to me and the fact that i can buy this ball now ans feel proud of where i came from. Football is more than just a game.
It is more than just a game. It is life. You win or lose but you enjoy it..
Football - more than just a game.
the beauty of football is its simplicity of the game,just take the ball,kick the ball.and it is affordable game for poor people.and another factor is its short duration of the game.
Hey tifo are you doing tactical previews for the world cup groups? Those were great for the euros and 2018 world cup
In Football you dont need a partner or other people to play with, you can just play alone just you and the ball anywhere in the world, you see thats the beauty of it
Same with rugby, cricket
@@crazyforcoffee5950 yeah the only difference is that Cricket is boring and Rugby isn't
@@josebertel7000 this happens when u know nothing about cricket and bark the stereotypical comment
@@crazyforcoffee5950cricket 🏏,☝️
Futbol is the world’s sport because you don’t need to be the biggest or tallest to play it. All you need is skills and passion. Just a ball ⚽️ find a net and shoot. No need for fancy gear.
Futbol is the most inclusive sport from a poor man’s country to a rich man.
So true
beautiful game with no bounadry or language barrier❤️
There's only one language barrier. When the most avid British and American fans talk to each other about it using only words coined in England. Let the fun commence.
Simple- Football is life❤
Great video brings back some of my favorite childhood memories!Me and my friends used to make balls of plastic bags and kick them and we would sometimes play in the local tennis court since there was no field
Whoever said football Is the beautiful game was a genius
Beautiful? No chance 😂😂
@@crazyforcoffee5950football is becoming an irrelevant sport and also is declining rapidly
Tifo are a blessing to football community
Accessibility and team ethos are the dual important things here. They can speak to the aspirations of people around the world, as anyone with talent in football can get some chance of success/glory. With golf, tennis, horse racing or rugby you can't get the same feeling.
which is weird, im filipino and normally i hear people argue the reason we don't play football or its not as popular here is because we barely have space or its not as acessible. weird reasoning.
Just gave a speech about this topic in class, and this video helped me out a ton. Thank you guys for the assist!
Great video Tifo! I love learning Football!👑⚽🏆💯✨
becouse everyone can end up on top no matter the background, wealth or place of birth. No other sports creates such emotions
Some of my fondness memories ever are playing football with my classmates between classes or when the teacher was late.
We would just push all the chairs to the sides, two chairs on each end of the classroom were the goal. 2v2, winner stays on and the ball was made out of paper and tape. That was it. Simple. But it would get crowded by people from other classes. Just waiting for you to lose so they get a chance to play.
You had to be alert because an inspector may be around and would take the ball. You had to be quick to get all the chairs in order and start drying your uniform all messed up from the sweat under the fan on the ceiling. Good old days.
I think along with this, the sensation of kicking a ball is (for whatever reason) a far more enjoyable sensation than most others…your feet *are* the bat, the club, the racket.
2:44 Jumpers for goalposts! Small boys in the park? Enduring image! Isn't it? Marvelous!
When I was very young- I didn’t get it while other kids darted around the playground. When I was 11 I was the smallest, skinniest kid blown away on a full size pitch and the last to be picked in the team. But when my love for the game emerged outside of trying to play it, and away from that social hierarchy- I relaxed, enjoyed expressed myself and even scored a few on my left peg.
I’m now 47. Did try a bit of seven a side pre covid infection and was roasted despite the cries of man on. No matter, I’ve got good memories of playing some matches- but even better ones of talking a good game.
It's the easiest game to understand. Kick the ball into your opponents goal. Make sure you do it more times than they do within the allocated time.
Wonderful vid! I spotted however a typo: 0:57, the map says Kazkahstan instead of Kazakhstan.
2:27 funniest animation I’ve seen in a Tifo video lmao
My neighbors and I used to play it in the vacant lots behind our houses. We'd be cleaning the place in the spring when all those weeds started popping out and in the fall, right after my uncle harvested his corn or wheat we would be playing in his crop field. Pick-up football games were my childhood entertainment.
please make a video on how clubs share the same stadium
Football is popular because football can be popular. Mind blown.
It's the most accessible so it appeals to everybody anybody of any race height socio economic class can play that's the difference
thank you Tifo for always producing such great content
To simplify this sport
It can be played by anyone anywhere no matter the numbers or the field side. We all got potential and can show our own creativity
It's ironic that here in India people prefer to play Cricket rather than football while playing in a confined space. And almost every house here has a bat. Cricket played on streets is called Gully Cricket, but there is no gully football.
So, you don't need to be simple in order to become most popular sport in any region, all you need is cultural acceptance. Despite being extremely long and difficult to understand game, cricket in India has become a parallel religion.
its because of culture. Same goes here in the Philippines, a lot will say we cant play football because we don't have that much space or its inaccessible. Football wouldn't be the most popular sport in the world if its inaccessible. You can play football in the streets like what we do with basketball, You don't need a big field or anything. PLus in the metro areas sure there are less space but in the province there is plenty of farm fields to play with yet you would see the people make makeshift rims and paste it on a tree just to play basketball. Simply cultural and if there is a will there is a way. FIlipinos like fast paced action scoring it is why we like boxing, MMA, volleyball (for women mostly) and basketball because it gives you fasy entertainment. Heck if Americans taught us American NFL football i personally think we would enjoy it as well.
@@jmgonzales7701 thanks for enlightening me, I always thought Fillipinos love football more than anything.
@@monsieur1936 well to be fair football is played mostly by more richer folks. The working class plays basketball, but ofc that is not the rule. Many workinh class people still play football but basketball is the most dominant sport. I have a indian-filipino friend he was the one who introduced football to me.
@@jmgonzales7701 I never heard about basketball being played as a dominant sport outside of America. Glad to know that. Even in India you can find distinctions mostly among the states, like eastern and north eastern states play football more than cricket meanwhile wrestling and hockey is popular in some Northern States. Cricket however is a sport which is played by rich to poor everyone, both in City and countryside. However most of the cricket legends are from select few cities like Mumbai and Delhi.
@@monsieur1936 yeah from what i heard cricket is a big thing. Its mostly unheard of here but our indian minority groups play it.
Football is being human, inclusive adaptable , dynamic and competitive
The simple answer is that it is so simple. Anyone can play a form of football as long as they have a ball of some sort.
i would argue nfl style football is even more simple, problem is the gear which involves padding and helmet. But carrying a ball to the other end is more simple than having to kick a goal.
Football is life, as in the real one that has to do with using your foot to play the ball…
Oh don't start.
personally i prefer american style football but that's just me
and I'm here, a football fan, born in the basketball crazy country.
Very elaborate 👏👏👏
My excuse is that I am Brasileiro and I have loved the sport due to all my life due to it being a big part of my culture.
Can you do a documentary on the San Marino national football team (football's biggest underdogs) and their never-ending struggle in international football. Loving the content ❤
you won something or just want to joke about your team? :D
Tifo will make the video once San Marino finally wins their first international game.
@@Darwinek They did! That win over Liechtenstein in 2004 counts!
2022 world cup gathred 4 billion wich is 4/8 half the earth was watching
Not me 😂😂😊
@@crazyforcoffee5950 ohhh man you don't know what you missed out
@@josebertel7000 Meh, couldn’t care less. Much prefer Rugby that’s my passion.
love from ilam nepal!
Football is not only the most popular sport, but the best sport
Not the best
@@AMITKumar-fn3qo Wrong, your false opinion is incorrect.
@@yourmothersfavourite your false opinion is incorrect.......everyone likes the sports they loved from their childhood they had connection with their sports....like indians & australians follow cricket like a religions..Americans do same with basket ball you know....calling your self only fish in. The sea doesn't sounds well🤡
@@AMITKumar-fn3qo Wrong, your false opinion is incorrect. Football is the best sport. You've confused subjectivity into this somehow, further proving my point. Are you twelve?
@@yourmothersfavourite nope 20....football is not the best sports sometime it's boring to watch when no goal is on the board just players running & defending against a ball😮💨
Simple answer everyone connects to the game and has emotional bond both playing and watching
Beautifully put gents!
Quite funny, i remember myself lifting up a basketball with my foot and messing around with it before training sessions began
The beautiful game!
The streets in mexico were I lived were so narrow 2 parked cars were used for the goals.
Cricket can be played anywhere, anytime! In my country we play cricket wherever we have small space!
"Every kick of it massively mattering to someone, presumably!"
Heck i used to play it with socks inside my house. That's how obsessed i was with it.
Calling Cuju "football" is like calling American football "football". It's a different sport.
You don't even need a ball. Me and my mates once played invisible football, though I think we may have been a bit drunk
now how did you not add ''your mom's living room''😂😂😂😂 2:41
This video is beautiful as the game itself
Unfortunately that 'round object' that gets a kicking is too often somebody's head. Play nicely people. 🙂♥️⚽
Sometimes the hand too, scored a hand of god which made my team won the local schools cup, sneaky me!
Because the games are actually more talked about than the commercials.
The thing about different physiques is what I really like. I don't like how the most popular sports in America require peoplr to be freaks of nature just to be an average player. In football, size can be an advantage but the majority of players are abot average if slightly above height, and someone like Messi can be the best in the world at an average stature
When I was in hostel we used to play putting clothes and paper inside a socks and play the game. Hours and hours were spent playing it. We even used to get punished for playing but it was all fine.
Same here and im sure we are not from the same country or region, the Game is the game every where, it finds expression in all frlorms across different cultures
I play a sport which is called for a reason " the gentleman game "❤️😌
Cricket ❤️❤️
@@Soul_Hacked greatest sport ever 🙏
@@Mfdoom534 Boring af loo
@@Soul_Hacked what is that?
@@Soul_Hacked an insect?
Because it is so beautiful to watch and play football😍
Where's the World Cup team previews just like in 2018
Hello tifo soccer good video I wanted to ask you something and it's about why you don't make a channel of yours but with Spanish dubbing? I am Hispanic and I like your videos. And the truth is that you would do a great favor to your Hispanic subscribers, there are many interesting topics, thanks. If you are wondering how I can write to you in English, it is because I am using the translator
Bruh if there were 7.6 billion people on earth (I think it was closer to 7.7) during the 2018 world cup... there will be 8 billion people on earth for the next one. That's a scary amount of population growth. ~100 million people a year being added.
We can see many other major sports adopted training techniques from football.
Not in the Philippines... :(
That world map is very...interesting
In the end, humans just generally love balls.
This made me a little emotional
It’s popular because Ibrahim Sangare plays it
been an Arsenal fan for almost 2 decades now. Give me anything last minute goals, 25 yard screamers, red cards nothing and say absolutely nothing in football could ever come close to a nail bitting last ball thrilling finish in cricket.
Because you don't need to be a hulking giant (American football), a skinny giant (basketball), or live at the North Pole (hockey) to play. And relegation adds quite a bit of spice to the whole thing.
Baseball just sucks.
as a baseball fan, i agree with you tho. Too much problems at my sport to the point in thinking why im doing this. Sometimes, I'm watching highlights of football games like world cup, epl, or bundesliga. Im also researching on how pro/rel and domestic tournaments works.
I think it is simply that comercialized, that it is brought to every corner of the world. Once it's there it will grow, as more and more will notice it.
I know its a somewhat less optimistic and peace-and-love theory, but thats not a falsification yet.
Bingo. You nailed it
Obviously due to accessibility for everybody. Sometimes you don’t even need to purchase a ball to play with your friends
Because it is football
Easy to play and watch, but hard to master.
During lunch time ,its a culture to play football with bottles on floor in our school
In all senses, a truly popular sport ⚽️
Still waiting for the wolves video on the appointment of Julen Lopetegui, massive appointment in the league and not a mention whatsoever 🤦♂️🙄, then compounded by the quick and very well put together presentation of Unai Emery’s appointment. Not surprised though with this channels over extensive converage of select clubs (utd, Tottenham, brighton, chelsea to name a few)