Why football failed to catch on in certain countries

[mjk45]

HomokHarcos said:

I find a brain for breakfast and he explained why football failed to catch in some countries.

Interestingly, many countries where it's not the most popular sport were formerly part of the British Empire:  United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India.

I'll summarize them.

Ireland: Due to Anglophobia, native sports such as curling and Gaelic football were promoted by Irish nationalists.
Canada: The cold climate lead to ice hockey becoming the dominant sport.
United States: Baseball was the first major professional sport, American football became the dominant sport and basketball became the urban sport of participation.
India: Cricket became popular in India due to consistent competition with commonwealth countries such as England and Australia from their test nation status.
Australia: Due to Australia's physical isolation, the native sport of Australian rules became popular. Cricket remained popular due to a similar reason as India.

I know he didn't explain Japan in the video, but baseball became the dominant sport there because Americans brought the sport there and baseball became the main game at university campuses.

I have to challenge the Cricket assumption from Australia's stand point cricket did not become popular because of commonwealth nations  and their test status  since pre ww2  International cricket was dominated by Australia v England Ashes tests  , modern  Ashes tests evolved from these 19th century English v Australia matches all the tours where private enterprises in that time with each player receiving money from the enterprise.  

Cricket in 19th  century Australia was popular enough for private parties to form Tours with the knowledge that they would redeem the tours costs and still make large profit's, these early  tests with England losing at home  lead to the burning of the bails and England v Australian tests becoming the Ashes  shows that the popularity predated International Test cricket that we know today and it comes back to down to  colonisers introducing and popularising games they brought with them.

My take on AFL is the foundation clubs are among  the oldest if not the oldest football clubs in the world predating association football.

Last edited by mjk45 - on 24 July 2018