The Changing Nature of Sports: Which Ones Are Becoming More Popular, And Which Are Fading Away?

Some things become more popular as the years go by. There are others that lose popularity through centuries. You can see technologies, fashions, and architectural styles, all changing their natures from century to century.

Could the same be true of sports? It would seem so, given that people themselves tend to shift their interests over the course of time. But it pays to look at the actual numbers nonetheless. Let’s take a closer look.

Football Is Solid

The world’s number one sport will not surprise anyone. Football is known to have approximately 3.5 billion fans worldwide or roughly half the world’s population. This truly is an incredible number for something that could well be considered a niche interest.

And it is by no means a new phenomenon. Although it’s exact origins are somewhat disputed by historians, the sport is considered to be approximately 3000 years old. So, not a bad run. The sport remains popular as it brings people together all over the world, fuels nationalist and competitive spirit, and encourages friendly rivalries all over the world.

Olympic Sports

Arguably the world’s oldest multi-sport competition is the Olympics. Having begun in 776 BC, the ancient sporting event dropped off for a while but was then revitalized in the modern era.

Sports such as running and swimming seem to come so naturally to mankind that it is unlikely they will go out of style. However, what of other Olympic sports?

Gymnastics, for example, is a sport that has been revitalized (albeit in a drastically different form) from the time of the ancients. Now there are offshoots such as trampoline, which recently made its debut on the multi-sport stage, and breakdancing, which will have its first appearance in the upcoming Olympics. Whether or not some of these new sports will retain their popularity has yet to be seen.

Cricket

One might think that cricket rivals football as the world’s number one sport. However, despite people’s wholehearted devotion to the sport in the world’s most populated country – and several countries around it – cricket is still far from being universally loved.

The sport has seen a certain rise in popularity in previously unlikely places recently, like the US and even Namibia. But the numbers are nowhere near high enough yet to put cricket’s global popularity rating anywhere near that of football.

New Sports?

While some sports that are not new but which have previously been limited in popularity to particular areas, such as baseball and basketball, have been gaining an increasingly global audience, there are new sports that are very much on the rise these days.

While some of these new trends are not yet huge on the international competition scene, you never know what might happen in the future. The older generation’s answer to tennis is now pickleball, which is exploding in popularity all over the world. While leagues are currently limited to friends and colleagues in most places, this sport could well have a spot next to its more established counterpart on an Olympic court one day.

Ultimate Frisbee is another one. Olympic-level frisbee? It might sound like a joke now, but we may well have said the same thing about breakdancing back in the 1980s, and it is now set for its Olympic debut in Paris. Frisbee is something that brings people together in diverse places and gains more and more devotees with every passing year. So you never know.

If you’re the risk-taking type and perhaps believe in the value of luck, perhaps you should try your hand at wagering on your favorite team. There are quite a few online betting apps on the market these days, and one of them just might help you win big. Check them out.

Sports Of The Future?

There is no telling where human innovation can take us. Considering the extent to which scientists are constantly working to perfect the human body and its capabilities, the nature of sports could take any number of forms in the future. However, it is also likely that some of the old favorites will remain. There is certainly something to be said for standing the test of time.