10 biggest sports markets in the world (by country)

[Luke888]

HomokHarcos said:

Luke888 said:
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?

Since I personally don't follow football I don't even know what the matchfixing scandal was, imho the reasons why football is losing popularity are various: 

-the same football club has won the Serie A for like 5 years in a row now, people start losing interest when the same team wins over and over again;

-various teams went though either bankrupcy or a buyout from other countries (US/China) that lessened the interest in the teams for some people (i.e. Milan F.C. was owned by our sadly famous ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi before he sold it to a group of Chinese milionaires);

-our market for players has been rather awful in the past years with great players like Ibrahimovic and Pogba leaving without anyone of the same level to come replacing them. That being said I heard that this year many clubs are buying A LOT of good players (especially Milan) but yet no great talents;

 

Imho this year we will se a change in the trend but if the italian clubs can't sustain this same activity on the market (or even exceed it) ifootball will start decreasing in popularity again