And for the longest time they have sponsored and received the Intercontinental Cup between Europe and Latin America.

Do you mean the Club World Cup? The Intercontinental cup hasn't been held since 2004, the Club World Cup is between more than just Europe and South America.

Well the French league was more competitive. These days it might as well just be renamed the PSG League though

Although I was actually referring to the English Championship (2nd division). The top division is more competitive than other top European leagues, but the Championship is much more competitive than that.

I don't think league competitiveness really has any impact on the national team though, especially these days when top countries have their best players spread over a bunch of different leagues rather than just teams.

I reckon you ought to look it up a bit more. Baseball is not behind Basketball.

About being the worst sport to watch, it depends. Baseball is "slow" but lots of people like it "slow". Besides Baseball is a "easy watching" sport. You can watch it the way you want, eating, talking and you're not going to miss anything, like in fast paced sports where you can't take your eyes out of the TV. A ball game has also many sections and you can pay attettion to what you like instead of everything. You also can enjoy the start of the game, with the starter pitcher or the end game with the bullpen where the game can get very wild. Baseball also can start on 8-1 and then turn to 8-11 easily, which is really exciting. Happens all the time.

Hmmm. Well, I don't think you're giving baseball enough credit. At the professional level, which is certainly a significant part of the equation when gauging overall popularity, baseball is bigger. More profit, more revenue, higher live attendance figures. TV ratings seem close between the two, but I thiiiink MLB is still ahead. Not sure about that one.

https://howmuch.net/articles/sports-leagues-by-revenue

https://statpedia.com/stat/Top_Sports_Leagues_by_Revenue/rJby7OpL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue

All those lists paint a very similar picture as far as the $$$ is concerned. The totals may be different, but the order is the same in every one. The NHL, currently #5 in the world, may see slightly more gain than the other leagues when the 2017-2018 totals are complied, due to adding another team, which was wildly successful, in a primarily gate-driven league. Plus, they are probably expanding to Seattle in 2020, and with that comes a ginormous expansion fee of $650 million paid out to the NHL. I assume that would count towards revenue.

Brazilian teams have won a lot of international championship even when fragmented.

A lot easier to have a single or two very strong teams than have 10-15 strong ones.

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_clubes_campe%C3%B5es_mundiais_de_futebol

Also when you have a very very strong team like Real Madrid playing the rest of the Spanish League RM is playing high level soccer but the others aren't really so saying the league is of high level isn't quite right. Would say that Euro Cup may be little ahead than Taça Libertadores on quality, but the national leagues of europe not so much. The truth is just that some of these leagues have more money to pay for more stars, but concentrated on like 2 or 3 teams on a season.

I would say NBA have higher level than Olympic championship exactly because there are more good teams than Olympic where for several years USA dominated with easyness.

Yep, I have to agree England and France are a lot more competitive than the other national leagues, that may also be the reason why they aren't as frequently Euro champions or World champions because there are a lot of leveled teams and the power doesn't concentrate to much.

Eh we Europeans didn't really acknowledge the Club World Cup or peviously the Intercontinental Cup as something important, that's why we usually sent a B-team, so if you take pride in beating a 2nd team then good for you. I admit though that we started taking them a bit more seriously and I think it shows.

Since the 90's the UEFA won 20 out of 28 tournaments (71%), since the 00's 13 out of 18 (72%) and since the 10's 7 out of 8 (88%).

Also I don't really agree with your position on the Spanish League, I would easily put them above the Premier League as the mid tier clubs have absolutely dominated the Europa League for the past decade.

Oh, by EuroCup you meant the UEFA Champions League for club teams? I thought you were referring to the Euros for international teams, hence why I mentioned them. My mistake.

But you really shouldn't be judging the quality of the game based on a competition made up of 32 quickly put together teams with no cohesion or strategy. Seriously, while the World Cup might be exciting and it's obviously the biggest event, it's nowhere near as good as the top club competitions.

Yes, players moving to European teams from everywhere in the world, including South America, is why the European teams are stronger. Acknowledge that doesn't suddenly make the European teams not stronger.

Also, I'm not too knowledgeable on São Paulo's club world cup victories, but I'm pretty sure they won one over a team you didn't even mention. You're also calling the Champions League "EuroCup", so yeah, not a lot of reliability there.

Edit: and no, no team goes to a club world cup with the intent to lose, but it is undeniable fact that south american teams are usually far more hungry to win. As a (sort of) Brazilian who supports an English club, I know how people feel about it here, and it's quite obvious how they feel about it there. Here, when a team wins the Libertadores, everyone's thoughts seem to be divided on celebrating the trophy and celebrating the qualification for the club world cup. It's kind of a sad sight really, because the Libertadores is a much better and more relevant competition, but that's how it is. For European teams, winning the Champions League is the end-all be-all. When a team wins it, everyone involved celebrates only the trophy, no one even remotely thinks about the club world cup. Furthermore, they have even less reason to give a crap about the club world cup because it takes place midway through their season, which means they have a couple of extra matches and a hell of a long trip halfway through the season to worry about when they're usually just trying to get league games done - this is especially true for English teams, because besides not having a winter break, winter itself is usually the busiest period of the season, so by adding the club world cup in there it makes their whole schedule a mess.

Yes, players moving to European teams from everywhere in the world, including South America, is why the European teams are stronger. Acknowledge that doesn't suddenly make the European teams not stronger.

Also, I'm not too knowledgeable on São Paulo's club world cup victories, but I'm pretty sure they won one over a team you didn't even mention. You're also calling the Champions League "EuroCup", so yeah, not a lot of reliability there.

Edit: and no, no team goes to a club world cup with the intent to lose, but it is undeniable fact that south american teams are usually far more hungry to win. As a (sort of) Brazilian who supports an English club, I know how people feel about it here, and it's quite obvious how they feel about it there. Here, when a team wins the Libertadores, everyone's thoughts seem to be divided on celebrating the trophy and celebrating the qualification for the club world cup. It's kind of a sad sight really, because the Libertadores is a much better and more relevant competition, but that's how it is. For European teams, winning the Champions League is the end-all be-all. When a team wins it, everyone involved celebrates only the trophy, no one even remotely thinks about the club world cup. Furthermore, they have even less reason to give a crap about the club world cup because it takes place midway through their season, which means they have a couple of extra matches and a hell of a long trip halfway through the season to worry about when they're usually just trying to get league games done - this is especially true for English teams, because besides not having a winter break, winter itself is usually the busiest period of the season, so by adding the club world cup in there it makes their whole schedule a mess.

Yeah, the club world cup (and intercontinental cup before that) really isn't prestigious at all here in Europe. It's no different from any other super cup to us (does Brazil have a super cup?). Winning is preferred obviously, but win or lose it really doesn't matter that much and every game in the rest of the season is more important.

It's true. But I'd also say Brazilian and Argentinian championships are not that far behind european leagues. Certainly La Liga, Premier, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 are better, but after that you could argue Brasileirao is better than Portuguese league or Edervise. 

I actually think the state tournaments are a pretty cool idea. My knowledge of them is limited to what I know from Football Manager, but still.

Wouldn't mind them in Europe actually. Although aside from there already being a load of games to play, European regions aren't really big enough for a regional competition to be worthwhile. It would even make sense in some countries, like a Catalan championship for Spain, but that would effectively just be giving Barcelona a free trophy every year so there's no point to actually doing it.

For all your insistence on Real Madrid, you'd find it hard to believe they finished 3rd place in Spain last season.

Yes, I get your point, but it doesn't mean watching a league is more interesting just because it's more competitive. To put it in crude terms, it's like trying to decide which out of 20 piles of shit smells better, versus trying to decide between 18 piles of shit and 2 flowers - yeah, the first one sure is harder to decide, but the second one at least offers some pleasure. I say crude terms because I'm not trying to say Brazilian football is a pile of shit, but, you get my point.

Regardless, the Spanish league isn't as one-sided as it's made out to be. Yes, the title itself will go to either Barcelona or Real Madrid 90% of the time, but there are many other good teams that can put up a fight too, if not for the title, at least for continental qualification, and occasionally (such as this year) finish ahead of one of those two. Of course, Atlético Madrid has been doing it consistently in recent years, but we've had other teams show up such as Valencia, Villareal, Málaga (UCL quarter-finalists a few years ago), and even Sevilla who won the Europa League 3 times in a row.

Of course, the English league isn't one-sided at all either. Besides Leicester City of all things winning the title a couple years ago, it is true there's been only 3 teams winning it in recent memory (Chelsea, Manchester United and City), but again, the title isn't everything. You can still appreciate the competitive football even if the stakes aren't the title itself (though for teams like Tottenham and Liverpool it often is), such as Champions League qualification (Arsenal), Europa League qualification (the likes of Southampton, Everton, Leicester, Watford, and more... these change quite often), top half of the table or avoiding relegation. The Premier League is usually filled with close battles throughout the table, so it's crazy to say it isn't very competitive. Yes, the Brazilian league is even crazier and more unpredictable, but it is so at the expense of high quality football, this has always been my point.

As for the other three big leagues, well, yeah. They're Bayern-land, Juventus-land and PSG-land respectively. No excusing those.