Do British People Like Basketball?

  • Thread starter Thread starter tomarin
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

tomarin

Guest
Of all the American sports, basketball is the most successful and popular globally, especially in Southern and Eastern Europe and in South America, the Philippines etc. - but what about the UK? Do they not care about basketball? If not why not?
 
Last edited:
From googling I found that UK does not have a large nba audience. They have hoops at gyms and playgrounds but not as many as they would in other places.
 
tomarin said:
especially in Southern and Eastern Europe and in South America,
Click to expand...
I don’t know about other South American countries, but in Brazil basketball is seen as more of a fitness thing, hardly a spectator sport at all. Volleyball isn’t all that big as a spectator sport, either, but it’s bigger than basketball.
 
Last edited:
I played basketball a little at school, but it was much less important than rugby (from September until December), hockey (from January until Easter), and cricket (from Easter until the summer holidays). The only sport I enjoyed was hockey, which sadly in the UK is nothing like as popular as association football, rugby, and cricket. Our head of PE had been captain of the England hockey team and naturally several other members of the department were good hockey players including another former international. I remember that there was a master in charge of basketball, so there must have been some kind of school team, but I can’t say that I remember there being competitive games against other schools. I guess if interest in sports often begins at school then the absence of basketball as a serious competitive sport in British schools would go some way towards explaining why it’s not particularly popular in the UK. As for why not, I guess it’s the same reason why Americans aren’t very interested in soccer, rugby, cricket, and hockey and why rugby league has traditionally been played in the north of England but not in other parts of the UK. That is to say, it’s just down to local culture.
 
Basketball isn’t really a big sport in the UK. I think as Londoner says, it isn’t very big in schools, where people would learn how to play it. I also think soccer/cricket/rugby is so popular that people want to focus on them more than a new sport.

Not to say that British people don’t like basketball, of course. Just that it doesn’t really feature, compared to some other sports.
 
We have Basketball in Sweden. Not extremely popular. But you do hear about now and then on the sport news. Seems so American. I think it came from Canada. It seems very afro american to me.
 
Last edited:
tomarin said:
Is that regular volleyball, or beach volleyball?
Click to expand...
Both, but mainly indoor volleyball. It’s on television sometimes. There’s an American player, Destinee Hooker, who plays professionally for one of the Brazilian teams. There may be others, as well.
 
It was invented by a Canadian phys Ed teacher, James Naismith, but it was while he was living and working in Massachusetts, so I guess you could call it (and him, because I think he did acquire American citizenship) Canadian-American. At the end of his life he seemed surprised at how his simple invention had become so widespread, ubiquitous and beloved across the United States (and beyond).
 
Last edited:
Yes, it was invented in Brazil. The original name was futebol de salão, indoor football. But then again, it’s more of an amateur sport for people playing it to keep fit, though there is an organized futsal championship and games are occasionally televised.
 
And then tall afro-americans began playing the sport? Why was that?
 
I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s because it’s well suited to urban environments (i.e. doesn’t require a big field of grass or much else besides a ball and hoop)?
 
This is why it is not uncommon to see people here in Sweden practice some basketball.
 
It occurs to me that the more interesting question is not “Why do British people not like basketball?” but “How and why do some sports become popular in some places but not in others?”

Just to take a few examples of sports the originate in England:

Rugby was invented at the English public school of the same name, which under Thomas Arnold had become the model to be emulated by every other public school in the British Empire. Consequently, the game became popular among the upper echelons of British society and was exported to much of the British Empire. Curiously, however, rugby union, the form of the game played at the public schools and universities, also achieved universal popularity in Wales and the west of England, while a different form of the game, rugby league, became popular among working-class communities in the north of England. Rugby is very popular in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji, but it is curiously not as popular in Canada, the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent, and Africa (outside of South Africa), despite these countries and regions having experienced similar cultural influences during the period of British rule. Rugby also has limited popularity in some other countries, e.g. in Europe and south America.

Cricket, on the other hand, is the most popular sport throughout the Indian subcontinent, again, due to the legacy of the British Empire. It is also popular in the Caribbean, which fields a strong side despite its small population. Why did cricket, but not rugby, become popular in the Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean? Again, cricket is not particularly popular in Canada, but it is popular in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. It is interesting that Canadians have relatively little interest in the two sports most closely associated with the cultural legacy of the British Empire.

Of course, the most popular sport in the world is association football. It is the most popular sport in almost all of Europe and Latin America, the whole of Africa, and much of Asia. Curiously, regions of the world where football is not the most popular sport include Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent, and Australasia. How did football become the most popular sport in regions of the world where the British had little, if any, influence, such as Latin America and Russia?
 
I read a book written by a sports sociologist a few years ago that tried to explain why soccer was popular in some countries (wildly popular) but not in others. His explanation went along these lines: first you have to consider that modern professional sports is a phenomenon that requires certain preconditions to exist: modern business practices, modern media and technology, stadia, fans etc. Secondly he believes there are a limited number of sports that can be successful on a widespread basis in any one country or culture, and that the U.S. is unusual in that it has a ‘Big 3 and 1/2’ - football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey (the 1/2). Most other countries have a ‘Big 2’, comprised of soccer and one other sport.

Now, getting back to the genesis of modern professional sports and its attendant paraphernalia, he says that in each country’s case, certain sports ‘got to the table’ of establishing themselves as major sports and at a certain point the table was full and could not admit any more. That’s what happened to soccer in America. Baseball, football, basketball and hockey professionalized first and by the time soccer tried to establish a foothold it was too late and it was left on the margins of American society where it stayed until the World Cup was held here which in turn led to the formation of Major League Soccer (in the 70’s there was an earlier attempt to start a professional league, the North American Soccer League, but that foundered and became irrelevant pretty quickly, and the people behind MLS tried to learn from the NASL’s mistakes, and they’ve largely been successful - but not quite enough to unseat and replace one of the Big 3 and 1/2).
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top