Have you ever thought about that question? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is absolutely football. There are many different types of sports but why is football the most popular one? Of course, there are lots of factors. Let me tell you some of them.
A Cheap Sport
Football requires less equipment than other sports like American football (a pad, helmet, etc.), baseball (a bat, gloves, cleats, etc.), or diving (an oxygen tank, palette, etc.). To play football, you don’t need to own a real football. Just use your creativity and create a ball. If you want, you can use a plastic bottle or some scrap paper and I can assure you that they would make a super football.
The other thing is spikes, which are football boots. Although professional football players use them, they are not necessary. If you want to play football, you can play with sneakers, sandals, or even barefoot.
And if you need a goalpost, you can use objects such as rocks, sticks, or trees to mark the place.
As you can see, you don’t actually need money to buy something to play football.
Can be played anywhere
Football can be played anywhere you want. You don’t need a large area to play the game. For example, you can play in the streets or in the garden of your house.
It is an indoor and outdoor sport at the same time. Indoor football is a little bit different. FIFA calls it Futsal. There are official futsal tournaments for different styles of play such as the Futsal World Cup (5v5 or 11v11). In the outdoor version, you can either play on a pitch or on the sand, which is called beach football. There are lots of tournaments such as the Beach Football World Cup or Champions League.
Not time-consuming
One football match is 90 minutes long. When we add the half-time break, it will be 2 hours. It is not that long compared to other types of sports such as baseball, which lasts for 3-4 hours. It’s too much time both for the players and the spectators. If a match is longer, the players will be tired and the spectators are going to become bored of following the game.
Money
The amount of money spent on football is huge. During transfer seasons, managers of big clubs will try to transfer star players for millions of dollars. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo was transferred to Juventus for 117M euros in 2018. Also, lots of money is invested in the advertisement of football. When brands place an ad on the players’ shirts or shorts, everyone can see and be informed about them, which means these companies make more money in return.
Obviously, the reasons I mentioned are not the only ones which affect the popularity of football as there are lots of other reasons. I hope they help you understand why football is the most popular sport in the world.