Top 10 Most Popular Sports In India - SportsBrowser (2024)

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Top 10 Most Popular Sports In India - SportsBrowser? ›

Cricket is the most popular spectator sport in the country, and citizens often play it as a recreational activity; it generates the highest television viewership, and features full-capacity audiences in stadiums during international and Indian Premier League (IPL) matches.

Cricket is the most popular spectator sport in the country, and citizens often play it as a recreational activity; it generates the highest television viewership, and features full-capacity audiences in stadiums during international and Indian Premier League (IPL) matches.

Cricket is by far the most-watched sport in India. The popularity of cricket in the country is due to the large interest of the citizens in this particular sport and sportspersons. India's great performances in International cricket tournaments have a huge role to play in it's increasing popularity.

Kabaddi, India's second most popular sport, has been played and watched since ancient times. However, thanks to the government's and sports department's attention and the rise of world-class players, it has now become the country's premier sport.

Hockey is regarded as India's national sport because it is one of the oldest sports. The Indian Hockey Federation approved it in 1925. The Indians' first international hockey tour was against New Zealand, and they won 18 of the 21 games.

Kabaddi is one of the fastest-growing sports in Asia. The game has grown astronomically to a world favourite with millions of fans everywhere. It was first popular in India and Pakistan, where it originated from. The sport has a great league named the pro-Kabaddi season and the Kabaddi World Cup.

Swimming, ice hockey, and archery are the three sports that get the least amount of attention in India.

What are the 3 famous sports? ›

Football/Soccer

250 million people play the sport in 200 different countries, and there are around 3.5 billion fans worldwide. The next three most popular sports are field hockey, which has 2.2 billion fans globally, basketball, and cricket, which has 2.5 billion fans (2 billion).

The four leagues traditionally included in the definition are Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), and the National Hockey League (NHL).

Cricket is the most popular sport in Pakistan. Almost all districts and neighbourhoods in Pakistan have a cricket team and people start playing from a young age.

Football is becoming increasingly popular in India as a result of a variety of causes including greater media coverage, improved infrastructure, grassroots growth, foreign influence, and online sports betting. Several elements have contributed to the development of football fanaticism in India.

Football earns one of the highest television ratings of any sport in the country and has been one of the most well supported sports in China ever since it was introduced in the 1900s. There is also written evidence that a game similar to football, Cuju, was first played in China around 50 BC.

Kabaddi is said to date back 4,000 years. As well as one of the world's oldest sports, it is perhaps also its simplest. No ball is involved nor equipment needed; a patch of land suffices.

Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world.

There are numerous reasons why this sport has gained popularity across the globe, particularly in South Asia. First, people of all ages play and watch this sport, Pakistan is a great example.

Hockey is the national sport of Pakistan, and the country has won both World Cup and Olympic awards in this sport. In squash the Pakistani sports players have won the British Open numerous times and a Pakistani player is the current world champion.

Which is the most watched sports league in India? ›

Indian Premier League

As already mentioned above, cricket is easily the most popular sport in India and IPL is the biggest cricket league.

You can play football if you have a ball and a field. Cricket on the other hand requires helmets, stumps, pads, arm pads, gloves and others which are not in everyone's reach. Football is a lively sport with all sorts of characters and personalities. Cricket on the other hand is a 'gentlemen's sport'.

1 Baseball (45.2% of Japanese people's favourite sport)

Baseball is nowadays the country's most popular participatory and spectator sport. It was first introduced to Japan in 1872 and it was developing since that year.

Technically speaking, Sumo is the national sport of Japan, but with sold-out stadiums around the country, baseball is very popular. Japan's twelve professional baseball teams garner a devoted following from people of all ages.

According to Sports Virsa, the top 10 hardest sports in the world to play in 2022 are as follows: Boxing (hardest), American football, mixed martial arts, ice hockey, gymnastics, basketball, soccer, wrestling, rugby, and water polo.

What is the hardest sport in India? Gymnastics. Competitive gymnastics is a physically demanding sport that calls for great strength and flexibility – making it meet the requirements of the toughest sports in the world. Compared to other sports, gymnastics does not rely on physical strength.

While Indian cricketers make a ton of money with cricket being the most popular sport in the country, they still have quite a long stretch to cover in order to attain the financial stature of star footballers, hoopsters, golfers, boxers and tennis players.

The sports goods industry of India has its roots in Sialkot, Pakistan. When India was partitioned in 1947, many of Sialkot's skilled Hindu craftsmen migrated across the border into Punjab, settling in Jalandhar, where the Indian sports goods industry is now based.

Long story short – yes, it can be said that Cricket is losing its charm among people, albeit partially and not wholly. Maybe even less so in India, but Cricket is surely fading away across the world, while other sports gain an audience.

Which is the sports capital of India? ›

Let the passion for the game spread to billion hearts.” After the spectacular success of the Asian Athletics Championship in 2017 and the Hockey Men's World Cup 2018, Odisha was complimented with the title of 'Sports Capital of India'. It went on to host several marquee events thus making a global impression.

Table tennis. The seventh sport on this list of the most popular sports worldwide is table tennis.

There are all sorts of reasons people will cite for soccer's failure to fully take off in the US: the lack-lustre performance of men's national team, TV rights limitations, the superiority of the women's national team, Major League Soccer (MLS) or even Jurgen Klinsmann.

Basketball is the highest-paid sport in the world, with an average annual NBA salary in 2023 of nearly $10.5 million. The league has over 30 teams and pays the highest player salary of $48 million. Each NBA team plays 82 games during a regular season with players earning an average of $91,463 during each game.

Football/Soccer

The sport has roughly 3.5 billion fans worldwide and 250 million players across 200 countries around the world. The next most popular sports in the world are cricket (2.5 billion fans), basketball (2.2 billion fans), and field hockey (2 billion).

As many as 3.1 crore Indians — or about 23 percent of the population of India — play at least one outdoor sport actively. Cricket, football and badminton take the top three positions as the most played sports in India. Volleyball and kho-kho feature also prominently in the list too.

As per the Sporting Nation Report, launched by the GroupM ESP, the industry witnessed a total sponsorship spend of Rs 5907 crore, a staggering 105 per cent growth from 2021.

The Indian sports industry grew 49 per cent in 2022, with revenue crossing more than ₹14,000 crore. Last year, the total revenue of the sports industry was around ₹9,530 crore.

Football

It is the most popular sport in the world, with 250 million players in over 200 countries.

Who is number 1 in sports? ›

Association football (also known as soccer) is the most popular sport in almost all Asian countries. Cricket is the second most popular sport in Asia, and is most popular in South Asia. Other popular sports in Asia include baseball, basketball, badminton and table tennis among others.

Cricket is the second most watched sport in the world with about 2.6 billion fans, mainly in India, where cricket is the national sport. While cricket is little known to Europeans, it is very popular in several countries in Asia.

Why does the NBA not allow the number 69? The NBA does not allow the number 69 to be worn by players as it carries a sexual connotation and could offend some fans. Despite Dennis Rodman seeking permission to use it when he joined the Mavericks in 1997, the league declined and he had to settle for wearing #70 instead.

MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL are commonly referred to as the "Big Four". Each of these is the wealthiest professional club competition in its sport worldwide, and along with the English Premier League they make up the top five sports leagues by revenue in the world.

7 jersey in football. While each left a mark, none are as synonymous with the iconic number as Cristiano Ronaldo. Doting fans commonly refer to the Portuguese superstar as CR7, which today is nothing short of a global megabrand.

Swimming, ice hockey, and archery are the three sports that get the least amount of attention in India.

Football earns one of the highest television ratings of any sport in the country and has been one of the most well supported sports in China ever since it was introduced in the 1900s. There is also written evidence that a game similar to football, Cuju, was first played in China around 50 BC.

Chinese play badminton and table tennis. The two backstroke sports have been among the most popular sports in China for years. International professional sports are dominated by Chinese in both table tennis and badminton.

But what is China's most beloved sport? The most-watched are soccer and basketball, while ping pong, often referred to as the “national ball game,” (国球 guóqiú), and volleyball, propelled to the forefront by the success of adored icon Láng Píng 郎平, are both wildly popular.