This is an interesting question indeed! How do you determine this. It is hard enough to get participation statistics, but this question must be a combination of various factors. One can only look at audiences for TV games but that is not necessarily a good measure, as outlier events like world cups skew this from year to year.
I have browsed around and find an interesting study. The full extract can be seen at (http://www.totalsportek.com/most-popular-sports/). I know there are many differing opinions, but the 13 factors they used seems a very good stab at it and here is why.
Viewership is a good indication of popularity and they include 5 factors such as global audience, tv viewership, prominence in sports headlines and media outlets and social media presence in their factors.
Money in the game shows how advertisers perceive popularity, as they will go where the most purchasing power is and number of people is a key part here. This is however severely skewed between low and high GDP per capita countries, so need to be taken with a little scepticism. They include 3 factors: TV Rights deals, endorsement and sponsorship deals and average athlete salary in the biggest league in that sport.
Final they look at global appeal and organisation. The include 5 factors: Biggest competition and how many countries are represented in it, regional dominance, accessibility to people worldwide, gender equality and relevance throughout the year.
Nice mix of factors that leads to their top 25
- Football/Soccer - sort of expected this. They are just so far out ahead. In nearly every factor they are number 1. Football is very structured with organised leagues all over the world and is at the top in virtually all continents and regions.
- Basketball - Wow, ok would not have said that. And a short while ago it may not have been, but it is the fastest growing sport in the world with leagues being set up all over the world. Will the NBA dominates it has the second most professional leagues around the world of all sports!
- Cricket - a billion indians can not be wrong. This I would debate. Cricket is not played in any major form out of the subcontinent and parts of the old British empire. It is making inroads into some markets and has a very active structure below the main countries, especially with the advent of T20 cricket.
- Tennis - Again very interesting. But there is definately a lot of money and with various world and regional tours and large equality between men and women, Tennis is a world powerhouse.
- Athletics - did expect this in top 5. A key part for my reasoning is relatively low cost of participation. This is probably the sport with the most countries that participate, and is the pinnacle of the Olympics.
6.Rugby - A fast growing sport that through rugby sevens and women's rugby has reached out to new audiences all over the world in the last few years.
7.Formula 1 - A very large surprise that is in the top 10 BUT it is a massive money sport and have appeal across the globe
8.Boxing - This makes sense. When a sport can put on what essentially is a farce take a retired boxer against a fighter that has never boxed in any major mach and promote it as a super fight and pulls it off .. massive following!
9.Ice Hockey - Another surprise. I mean Canada only has so many people! But most of northern Europe, scandinavia and Russia is passionate about this and again, the size of the North American economy makes sure it has massive per capita revenue. - Volleyball - one of the world's most played games deserves a spot in the top ten.
So who made it to the top 25 but not to the top ten. Here they are:
- Golf (so close), 12. Baseball (trying to grow in other areas), 13. American Football (fun to watch but maybe limited in growth outside USA), 14. MMA (wow this is becoming popular), 15. MotoGP (very Euro centric but growing in the East), 16 Field Hockey (deserves more PR), 17. Badmington, 18. Cycling, 19. Swimming, 20. Snooker, 21.Table Tennis, 22.Gymnastics, 23. Handball, 24.Wrestling, 25. Skiing
Many of these sports lack the money, management or drive to move up. And many other sports deserve to be hear. We at Sportspodium love all sports and we want to see more people play some of the 200 -300 Sports with Federations and many more of the 8000 sports in the world get more funded, organised and recognised.