17 Reasons Why Soccer is the Most Popular Sport in the World

Every time I get to watch a World Cup I ask myself the question: What makes soccer so popular? (or football, as it is correctly name by the whole world except the US). The last World cup (Russia 2018) was viewed by more than 4 billion people! I don’t know if you’ve realized than the world population is nearly 8 billion people. This means than more than half of the world’s population watched soccer’s greatest event.

So, why is soccer the most popular sport in the world? There a lot of factors that should be considered, but easily the most important one is soccer’s decentralization, meaning that is played globally instead of just in one region. Other factors like its low cost to play and simplicity, significantly contribute to making it even more popular.

Sports in general awaken passion in people, but there are a couple of things that make soccer different from other sports like baseball, basketball or american football that make it significantly more popular in the whole world. After reading this article, you should be able to understand why soccer is so popular around the world, except in the US, and hopefully , if you don’t practice it, you may want to give it a try.

What makes soccer so popular?

It is incredible how people around the world live the sport of soccer, as if it was a religion. Soccer is the only sport in the world that is able to paralyze entire cities and countries for one single game. Explaining why people feel so passionate about this sport is very hard even for a soccer fan like me.

Thankfully, I came up with a list of 17 factors that make “The Beautiful Game” the most popular sport in the world:

Inexpensive

One of the most important reasons why soccer is so popular is because it is so cheap to play. Sometimes you don’t even need a soccer ball. I grew up playing soccer with anything we found: maybe it was a can from a soda or a plastic bottle from a juice someone bought, other times we used a “tetra-pack”. Any of these items would be a perfect soccer ball.

We would use two objects to mark the goal. This objects could be rocks, shoes, sticks or basically anything visible. Some kids played with their sneakers, in sandals or even barefooted. The great thing is that we use to play anywhere we had space: in the streets, in the school’s recess, in an empty lot.

What makes soccer so great is that you can use your imagination to play anywhere in the world without needing to spend a single penny. No matter the situation, you can do anything to play the game, the only limit is your imagination. I remember watching a video of african kids that used plastic bags and pieces of thread to make their own soccer ball. Watching how those kids that were so happy playing with their own-made soccer ball made me feel so emotional on how many beautiful things soccer is able to accomplish with so little.

I recommend you read this article from “Daily Mail” in which they show pictures of how african kids use anything they have to play the game they love.

However, if you want to play with a real soccer ball you can find relatively cheap and durable soccer balls anywhere for only 10 dollars. Now, just imagine how many people can play with just 1 ten-dollar soccer ball. This what my friends and I used to do in the streets or the school, we would play everyday with the ball of one of our friends and take care of it as if it was ours.

We’re talking about playing soccer for fun, but if you want to play competitive soccer for a club or a team you can read my article “Costs of playing club soccer” to find out how much it costs to play soccer at a competitive level, and how to play for less money as most professional soccer players did.

When talking about soccer gear, the advantage is that the only thing you’ll really need to play soccer is a pair of soccer cleats and shin guards. Uniform and soccer balls are usually provided by the team. As in everything, you’ll find cheap and expensive gear, you can read my recommended gear section to find out the best soccer gear out there for the price.

Overall, soccer is considerably cheaper and requires less gear to play than other sports like football (shoulder pads, helmet, mouthpiece, etc), baseball (bats, baseball gloves, baseball cleats, etc), golf or tennis, which makes it more likely to be more popular.

Can be played anyhow anywhere

As I said before, the game can be played anywhere where there is space. Soccer being an outdoor sport is something that gives it a huge edge over other sports. But something even better is that soccer is one of the few sports that exists that can be played either outdoors or indoors, meaning that the game can be played basically anywhere.

Most of the time you’ll only need a soccer ball. However, a portable soccer goal can be a total game-changer and a smart purchase. To prevent wasting money just go to my Recommended Gear page and take a look at the ones I recommend.

Another thing that gives the game of soccer an advantage over other sports is the flexibility it offers. You can play soccer 11 vs 11 style in a full size soccer field. You can also play 5 vs 5 in an indoor court or the beach. Playing 7 vs 7 is also possible in a turf field.

In fact, FIFA has official tournaments for different playing styles of soccer like: FIFA World Cup (official men 11 vs 11 tournament), Indoor Soccer or Futsal World Cup (5 vs 5 tournament), Beach Soccer World Cup (5 vs 5 soccer played in sand), as well as other informal Street soccer and freestyle tournaments.

What makes soccer so popular and so played widely around the world is the flexibility the game has to adapt to your needs and preferences. If you don’t like one form of soccer you could play another and so on. A sport that can be played in any way and in whatever place possible will probably be very popular, just like soccer.

Focused on the player

In comparison to other sports, soccer is a game that is more player-focused than other. A game in where you can depend more on individual plays from a single player than other team sports. It gives the opportunity for the players to shine, which feels very pleasant for anyone.

In comparison to american football for example, the game is guided by the coach which calls every play that the team will make and the players have to follow each one of his instructions. In soccer, the players have to follow the coach’s instructions too, but if the team’s strategy is not working correctly, one player can always change the game with an individual play by himself.

The sport gives you more liberty to play the game with fewer restrictions and gives you the opportunity to shine more on the individual side. Something that anyone would like. However, in all sports players can shine too, what makes soccer different? Keep reading until the end,

Simplicity: Easy to play

Soccer is one of the easiest sports to play. Most of the times when I ask my friends why they don’t watch a specific sport their answer would be: “I don’t understand it”. In order for a game to be as popular as possible, anyone that hasn’t seen it before needs to understand the basics of it when they see it for the first time.

Especially in games like basketball, baseball or football, a person that has never watched the game before won’t understand why a touchdown is worth 6 points, why some points in basket are worth 2 points and others 3, they won’t understand how to run the bases correctly or what is an inning or an out.

Some people that have never played soccer think it might be very hard to learn. The fact is that there are positions that don’t require a lot of skill. I wrote an article about the Most Skilled Soccer Positions newbies should take a look at to know what positions to avoid.

In the other hand, the basics of soccer are simple: You have 90 minutes to make the ball go into the opponent’s goal as many times as you can, and you aren’t allowed to use your hands. Simple, no complications, a goal is worth one point, and the one with more goals wins… a 3-year-old boy can easily understand it. Someone that has never played soccer before can easily start playing the game and learn other more complex rules like the offsides, corners, penalties, yellow or red cards as they go on.

History

Soccer is one of the oldest sports that is still played today. According to FIFA, “ball games” similar to soccer were played as early as 200 b.C in the UK. The game changed a lot since then, and it wasn’t until 1857 when Sheffield F.C, the first ever soccer club, was founded in England. The oldest soccer competition that is still played today is England’s FA Cup which first competition was played in 1871.

The first official associated game between two nations was England vs Scotland played November 30 1872. Everything escalated quickly, and it was in 1930 when the first ever World Cup was played in Uruguay.

I recently wrote an article about The History of Soccer, which I believe is pure gold and something any soccer enthusiast would enjoy reading.

One of the reason why soccer and the World Cup are so popular is because they have a great time being played which has helped developed a soccer culture and a tradition that has been passed generation through generation until today.

Marketing

Having a sporting event that brings 3 billion people to watch it, is basically thanks to the great marketing that the world’s biggest brands do. Not only in the world cup, but also big soccer clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona that receive millions of dollars thanks to sponsorships. Last year, Barcelona received 233 million dollars from their biggest sponsor while Real received 210 million according to Forbes.

When huge companies invest so much money in this sport, believe me that you will see the word “Football” or “soccer” absolutely everywhere you go: restaurants, bars, hotels, airlines, the internet, videogames, etc. Marketing is one of the factors that makes soccer so popular. Brands want the sport to become bigger and bigger everyday, considering soccer is a multi-billion dollar market.

Competitiveness

You have no idea, how serious people take soccer in the world. Maybe not in the US, but in other countries, people take extremely personal what happens in a soccer game. Cities divide in two teams and sometimes riots may happen because of the outcome of some games. All of this happens because of the competitiveness soccer has.

This sport has everything to be super competitive: running, aggressiveness, heated atmosphere in games, fast developing, playing against the time. The more people play it, the more competitive it gets. Competition is something that attracts people to play and specially to watch the game. Most games at world cup and Champions League are very tight and teams do whatever it takes to win, which makes the game very entertaining to watch.

Internationally played

This is easily what makes soccer the most popular sport world-wide. Most of the sports are played just in one region of the world. For example cricket is usually played in the UK and the commonwealth, baseball in America and Europe and parts of Asia, and American Football just in USA.

In contrast, soccer is played absolutely everywhere in the world. FIFA officially has 211 member countries divided into six regions (CONCACAF, UEFA, CONMEBOL, CAF, AFC, and OFC). Which means every country in every continent has the chance to play its qualification to a FIFA World Cup.

Being an internationally played sport means it will be the one with the most competition. If you are a soccer player I recommend you make something to improve your game and always be one step ahead. I recommend you purchase a Soccer Training Program. Take a look here to see the one I advise you to invest in.

The country that wins the World Cup can actually be named “World Champions” as it is a tournament that gives a chance to countries from every region in the world to win it. In contrast to other tournaments like the Super Bowl, World Series or NBA Finals that are actually played in one single country.

This is what makes soccer so great. That a whole country has the chance to identify themselves with their soccer team. They feel as if the soccer players of their team are representing the whole nation, which is the case. No matter how many great soccer clubs are, it is hard to match the pride that makes you feel to see your country’s soccer team defend your flag’s colors.

A qualification to a world cup can unite a country as nothing else can. The great example of this is when my country, Panama, qualified to its first world cup. Everyone, even people who had never watched soccer before, were united cheering for our nation to qualify for this event. And when we did, everyone celebrated happily together.

Another great example was Syria during the last qualifications. A country with all the problems in the world, could totally forget about all of them for 90 minutes thanks to soccer. Definitely, soccer is so popular because it gives the opportunity to shine and feel pride to everyone and awakens great feelings even in those passing through struggles.

Leagues all around the world

As people can feel pride for their country, they can also feel it when watching their local clubs play. This is another thing that soccer has am advantage in comparison to other sports. In baseball, american football, and basketball for example, there is one huge league in the United States. The leagues from other country can’t even compare to the huge major league that is in one country.

In the other hand, soccer has great leagues in every continent. It is true that the biggest soccer leagues are in Europe, but other continents like south and central america, and Asia’s middle east have leagues that the fans support even more than the european leagues. Clubs help to keep alive the soccer passion in the fans during all year, and help develop pride for teams that represent a country’s region.

Having multiple leagues in many countries opens the opportunity to make international club competitions like the Champions League that faces soccer clubs from different countries.

Soccer is so popular because it tries to decentralize competitiveness and promotes the realization of international competitions.

Why soccer is so passionate?

Passion is something that drags people to a sport. The reason why people love watching soccer is because of the passion the sport makes them feel. So, why does this happen? Because of a lot of factors actually, but the most important one is because of the pride and affection fans and players feel for their soccer team.

Short time to watch

A soccer match is 90 minutes long, including half time the total time you might spend watching a soccer game is 2 hours. In comparison to other sports, this is very few time. Baseball games, for example, can last in average about 3-4 hours or even more if it goes to extra innings. The worse thing is that, from those 3 hours, only about 15 minutes are of actual playing time.

When a sports game is too long, the mind gets tired and bored of seeing it. The odds of watching a soccer game completely are higher than in other sports. Besides being shorter time, the game is faster and has more activity. This favors soccer to being more popular sport because people don’t have to spend too much of their time watching, even though you could plan a nice dinner, or BBQ around a soccer game if you wanted to.

It’s the beautiful game

There is a reason why soccer is called “The Beautiful Game”. The game of soccer is visually appealing. The fever of the crowd, the roar of the people, the emotions, the green grass, absolutely everything makes it exciting to watch a soccer game. It is just beatiful to see an absolute screamer golazo to the upper angle, a perfect slide tackle, a nice freekick. There is something about this game that makes it pleasant to watch.

Fans’ loyalty

Soccer is probably the sport with the greatest fans out there. Fans live soccer as a religion, as their, creed. Once they choose a team, soccer fans are loyal to it for the rest of their lives. One of the reasons why soccer is so popular is because of tradition. In most countries, fans don’t get to choose what team to support because the moment they were born their parents had already bought them their team’s jersey, so they grow up supporting the team that their parents already support.

If you are new to the game, I took the time to make a Guide to Choose a European Soccer Team to Support. It will give you an idea of what clubs could fit you better

I once asked my friend Tomas from Argentina why he supported “Boca Juniors” if “River Plate” was also from Buenos Aires. He said: “I don’t get to choose what team to support, before I was even born my father had already bought for me the Boca Juniors remera (jersey)”.

Now you can see that being a soccer fan is not something people choose or decide, the moment they are born they are already soccer fans of a soccer team, and it happens in this way in most european and south american countries.

Relatively safe sport

As in any other sport, there is an amount of danger from playing the game. It happens so fast, that an accident can happen at any time. However, I would say that soccer is considerably less dangerous than other sports, specially for the youth. There is a constant discussion in the sports world related to if soccer is really dangerous or not.

I wrote an article about how dangerous soccer really is where I debunked the myth that make people belive soccer is a dangerous sport to play.

All players have a chance

Soccer is one of the few sports in which all players have the chance to be in the spotlight. Everyone on the field, even a goalkeeper, can score a goal for their team. Being in the spotlight is something everyone likes.

In other sports this is hard to achieve. In baseball most of the time the ball is in the pitcher’s and catcher’s hands. In american football most of the time the ball is the hands of the quarterback. These games are more focused to having the spotlight on a group of players, making it harder for other players to shine too.

Is a sport for everyone

Soccer is a sport that has none physical restrictions to be played. In other sports like in basketball it is a requirement to be very tall, in american football you need to have a strong physique, etc. In soccer you don’t need to have this god-like physical condition in order to play the game. In fact, one of the best players in world, Lionel Messi, is a short guy (about 1.70 meters)

Also, soccer has no gender restrictions either. Women can play the game the same way as men. The Women World Cup is also a big sporting event, probably the biggest women sports event in the world too.

A sport that can by played by anyone, anywhere, anyhow, and at anytime probably has to be the most popular sport in the world, and that is soccer.

Why soccer is not popular in USA?

So, why if soccer is the most popular sport in the world it is not in this way in the United States?

Because they are not the best at it: This is the most straight forward answer I can give. Americans like the sports that they are the best at: Baseball (a world series that is played between two american teams), Basketball (have won most of the gold olympic medals), American Football (Only played in the United States). If they can’t be the best at soccer, then probably there is something “wrong” the sport.
Not big enough: Scores in soccer are smaller than in the other 3 american sports. For example, a soccer game might end 2-0 while a basketball game might end 110-98. Americans like everything bigger.
Not suitable for advertisement: In american football, baseball or basketball, TV stations have a lot of “dead periods” for advertisement, which makes it better to make more money than in soccer that only has halftime for advertisement.

There are a bunch of other reasons and a science behind the reason why soccer is not popular in the United States that you can take a look at in my article here.

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