No huge surprise in that list. Sure, China isn't there but people from China seem to prefer to pay for the English Premier League and so on.

If they would make a list where the money in sports comes from then it would look pretty different. I guess most money in sports in countries like UK doesn't come from UK,

WTF why are we #3 ? Football, while still being crazy popular, has been declining for a few years now; Basketball has a small following, the only other big thing imho is Swimming but I've never seen it broadcasted other than during Olympics/World Championships

Was it the matchfixing scandal that made football lose popularity there?

As for being ahead of Germany, I've read that the people who run German football were clueless on how to make money. I believe the Bundesliga was actively against airing their games on TV until the 1990's.

I believe Brazil has the 6th most valuable football league in the world. So it's basically just the 5 countries with a bigger league plus the USA that are ahead.

WOOOO!!! USA STILL NUMBER ONE!

I think it has to do with them having trouble competing for big stars in the market

I knew this thread was going to be by you before i even opened it

Wheres Korea? Isn't Starcraft II a sport there :P

I'm sure there's other comparable countries, but there's definitely an unusually large variety of popular sports in the US... American Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, and even normal Football are very popular here, with other sports (Rugby, Lacrosse, Softball etc) being very popular at the collegiate level.

Not surprised to see the US top this particular chart, though I can't explain why we have such varied tastes in sports.

We might even be higher since this was based on 2015 figures published in 2016, so its 2years out of date , and we have had or about to have new record media deals in many sports and leading the pack from a purely  growth perspective is female professional sports, they have had superb growth in the last 2 years, ranging from the new AFLW competition and the revamped netball competition along with the womens big bash cricket. with those forementioned sports  going well and hopefully being able to turn the success in womens rugby and socccer into better future media deals leaves us looking well placed going forward.