The most popular sport in every country explained via maps

Can you guess what your countries most watched sporting event is?

Have you ever wondered what the most popular sport in each country is? Well, new data from Sportsboom has revealed the most popular sport across the globe from ice hockey to canoeing – complete with some very interesting maps.

The company completed in-depth data into the trends in sports viewing in each country represented in the below graphics and some might come as a surprise, while others, not so much.

The full data and all of the maps can be found on the Sportsboom website. Unsurprisingly in Europe most countries had football as their most popular sport. The most football crazed countries on the continent were Wales, Spain, Germany, Italy and Iceland with 69% popularity. Meanwhile the most football crazed country in the world was Argentina with 89% popularity.

Other countries that followed common perceptions surrounding popular sports were the United States of America, with American Football being the most popular sport in the country. Meanwhile, in Canada ice hockey first place, cricket topped the list in India and Rugby grabbed the top spot in New Zealand.

Countries coming in with results that might come as a surprise to some included Taiwan, with baseball, Hungary, with canoeing and South Korea where baseball claims the top spot.

The undoubted most popular sport in the world was football with it ranking first in popularity in 66.4% of countries.

To collect the data the team at Sportsboom used a combination of Google Trends and multiple external sources to create an in-depth index of sport searching and watching trends per country to calculate the most popular sport.

Meanwhile, the most popular sporting event in the world is a hotly debated topic amongst sports fans and today we finally have an answer (at least per country) as the sports website has also provided data to answer this long-debated topic with some surprising results appearing. With events ranging from the FIFA World Cup to the Superbowl they finally got to the bottom of the most popular sporting events.

The most-watched sporting event in the United States is, not too much surprise, the NFL National Football League. Again, to not much surprise, the most watched sporting event in England was the FIFA World Cup at 50%, while its female counterpart was the most watched sporting event in Australia with a whopping 79%.

A positive sign from the data was the increase in popularity in women’s sports such as the FIFA Women’s World Cup with it being the most popular sporting event in several countries including Argentina, Vietnam and Germany.

Following on from earlier data from Sportsboom, with the most popular sport in most countries being football, the national or global professional football events dominate a lot of countries, with the African Cup of Nations being the most watched sporting event in Congo, Guinea, Mali, and Cameroon.

Meanwhile, the FIFA World Cup was the most-watched sporting event in many countries by quite the percentage with 15% of countries tuning in as their top watched sport event, and football events as a whole dominating.

Adam Savinson from Sportsboom said: “While some of the results might seem obvious to keen sports enthusiasts, being able to see exact figures and graphics laid out might help the not so sport enthused population gain a little more knowledge within the area.

“The data also revealed some results that surprised even me with some very interesting statistics that prove even sporting experts might be limited by the countries, sports and even major sporting events they are most familiar with.”