New Zealand is a top sporting nation for its size"
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@dogmeat said in New Zealand is a top sporting nation for its size":
Hyperbole or what?
Got to accept that at a global level all the weekend's successes were in niche sports
Or not. Given the population of the Indian subcontinent alone is nearly 2 Billion, cricket is pretty big for a niche sport.
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@SBW1 said in New Zealand is a top sporting nation for its size":
All the curves in the right places.
All the isthmus
You'd need for Christmas -
Have your say: Was this New Zealand's best sporting weekend ever?
New Zealand and its athletic stars couldn't put a foot wrong this weekend.
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@Donsteppa I wondered who would bring up the Indian population red herring.
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@dogmeat said in New Zealand is a top sporting nation for its size":
@Donsteppa I wondered who would bring up the Indian population red herring.
There are varied measures out there when I had a look last night, but cricket seems to sit somewhere in quite a few Top 10 sporting code measures. Quite often #2 by viewership behind football, though some of those reports do seem to be citing each other...
Not every Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, or Nepalese national loves cricket, but that's the same with NZ and rugby, etc etc.
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@Donsteppa Yeah I think numbers supporting need to be looked at carefully when one really populous nation is involved.
Table Tennis has over a billion followers - mostly in East Asia. It's a niche sport too.
Pencak Silat is the national sport of Indonesia, followed by hundreds of millions globally and has biannual world championships with around 70 member nations (including NZ) I'd never heard of it until 5 minutes ago.
To me cricket is as niche as rugby. It has more fans thanks to the sub-continent but rugby has greater depth of participating nations.
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So outside of soccer which people generally accept as a global sport, are there any others not considered "niche"? You could make an argument for all of them being niche if you want I'd say.
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@dogmeat I think the risk is that everything but football can become - and be dismissed as - a niche sport.
I'm probably more knee deep in cricket social media than most, but unless we're defining it by full ICC membership, I've not formed a view that cricket has fewer participating nations than rugby. The Indian diaspora playing a part in that (among other factors).
@No-Quarter Snap!
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@No-Quarter Athletics is an obvious one. But I would say that Tennis and Golf are more global games than Rugby or Cricket.
@Donsteppa Participating nations is another red herring IMO See NZ / Pencak Silat. Cricket has 12 Test playing nations and 8 associates with ODI status and 2 more with T20 status. Then scores of countries with a Board affiliated to the ICC.
By the most generous of definitions there are 22 'competitive' nations at a global level. Numbers 21 and 22 being PNG and Thailand.
The 21st and 22nd ranked test rugby nations are Canada and Chile. My point wasn't about how many nations participate in each sport - it's the global depth of the sport.
NZ is ranked 22 in basketball. I'd say there's another sport with more depth and global reach than cricket. I'd give NZ more chance of being competitive against the USA at basketball than Thailand against South Africa in rugby
Personally my favourite sport is cricket (test) by a country mile
Anyway not to detract from the weekends achievements. All awesome in their own right.
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2024 could well go down in history as one of our best sporting years, there are still a number of other sports to come including about two more 7s tournaments, the Pacific Nations League Men and Women, Abs tour of Japan and Europe as well as the ongoing test series in cricket and netball, in addition there are our Aleague soccer teams and the Breakers. There are probably a number of other sports I haven't mentioned, we have also featured well at cycling which is hosting a World Championship.
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i would say Basketball is a truly global game. Professional leagues all over the world. The NBA has a massive following everywhere of course, but while that is the centre of the basketball universe, it's huge in Europe, big in Asia.
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@Windows97 said in New Zealand is a top sporting nation for its size":
Well, we can hold this title until someone from Naru, Liechtenstein or the Vatican City wins something, then all our stats are meaningless
Jamaica has us beat all ends up
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@nzzp said in New Zealand is a top sporting nation for its size":
@Windows97 said in New Zealand is a top sporting nation for its size":
Well, we can hold this title until someone from Naru, Liechtenstein or the Vatican City wins something, then all our stats are meaningless
Jamaica has us beat all ends up
Dammit!! I knew there was some statistical anomaly that would trip us up!!
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Don't even have to look for a country with a smaller population.
Ladies and Gentlemen I give you - Finland Slightly larger popn than NZ - 480 Olympic medals including 146 Gold. Obviously dominated by the nordic / alpine sports but also historically strong in athletics (48 Olympic Golds), motor sport, wrestling and a whole bunch of sports you will have never heard of.
Though apparently the West Islanders are the worlds sportiest nation
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@Windows97 No Jamaica which has upwards of 2 million people is mainly known for incredible sprinters like Bolt, in addition they like the other three often compete as the West Indies. We were ahead of Jamaica is the last Olympics even in per capita terms.
