Basketball catching up to soccer/football in popularity

An interesting read.

Again, simple sports are the best. You only need a ball and a bucket for basket ball.

The Beautiful Game is here to stay.

@Deboss

Well you need a court for basketball and a high bucket/basket? With football you need a ball, and maybe some jackets or anything usable as a marker such as trees. Also you can use trees as you don't need special flooring for football.

Edit: I'm not really fussed by this, both are fun to play and moderately boring to watch.

edited 8th Oct '10 3:06:14 PM by IanExMachina

Yes, you need a hard surface and a hoop on a ten-foot pole(for anything above 3v3 you'll want two) for basketball. But these things are easy to set up, especially in cities where you'll be paving a lot of ground anyways. On the other hand, finding sufficient space for an association football field, and enough players for two teams, can sometimes be difficult.

^ You don't really have to. A ball is all you need. A pair of shoes to mark the goal. Even one goal is enough.

It's not an arms race though. Good thing if basketball's catching up.

As long as the professional basketballers are better role models than some of the football players.

edited 9th Oct '10 4:33:19 AM by IanExMachina

Sadly, basketball can't get over the fact that it is a horrid game. Or the fact that it's a game in which a team that scores a goal promptly retreats to their side of the court, for no rules-related reason at all, other than common courtesy.

While I dislike watching soccer a good deal so I have some bias here, I do think it would be nice if sports like basketball or baseball became more popular around the world. I think that basketball has certain features, a fast pace and frequent scoring for example, that allow it to appeal to some people that might find soccer to be more boring.

While I do enjoy watching football as well, I do not expect it to become more popular around the world because of all the equipment it requires and the other sports it would have compete against like rugby.

Baseball seems to be decently widespread, but I would like it to be a bit more popular in Europe or Africa so the World Baseball Classic is not completely dominated by North American and South East Asian teams.

I doubt that if any of those sports became more popular soccer would totally drop off of the face of the earth though. I would just personally find it entertaining if international competitions for other sports could reach the level of the World Cup.