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What's the national sport and which is the most followed one?
What is/are your favourite sports?
Are there some traditions unique to your country?
How's the atmosphere at a game?
I'll start with my country, Italy, soccer is the national sport and by far the most popular one followed by basketball and volleyball. Soccer or football as Europeans usually call it is also my favourite sport.
The organized tifo has originated in Italy in the 60s when both Sampdoria and Torino saw the birth of the first two ultras groups, with time ultras have developed links with political parties and movements often on the extremes of the left and right, this caused several problems through the years not only in Itlay but also abroad.
Volleyball seem unusually popular here, it seems a niche sport everywhere but not here where the national leaue has the highest average attendance in the sport.
Atmosphere, especially at football games can get quite intense
Though our national sport is possibly still cricket.
Cricket is certainly the true national sport, though the top 3 national television audiences for 2014 were all Rugby League. AFL certainly gets more bums on seats though.
What's the national sport and which is the most followed one?
What is/are your favourite sports?
Are there some traditions unique to your country?
How's the atmosphere at a game?
I'll start with my country, Italy, soccer is the national sport and by far the most popular one followed by basketball and volleyball. Soccer or football as Europeans usually call it is also my favourite sport.
The organized tifo has originated in Italy in the 60s when both Sampdoria and Torino saw the birth of the first two ultras groups, with time ultras have developed links with political parties and movements often on the extremes of the left and right, this caused several problems through the years not only in Itlay but also abroad.
Volleyball seem unusually popular here, it seems a niche sport everywhere but not here where the national leaue has the highest average attendance in the sport.
Atmosphere, especially at football games can get quite intense
my favourite sport is soccer which due to the dominance of gaelic football and hurling , leaves the country at a disadvantage when it comes to competing in soccer globally , young guys who are talented usually end up playing native sports , in reality we only have a soccer population comparable to tiny countries like Latvia
Football is the most played sport in terms of licensed players and as a hobby, but ice hockey is the most popular one in terms of attendances, media attention and sponsorship euros.
The national sport and unique to Finland is pesäpallo, the Finnish version of baseball. The sport, however, is overwhelmingly a rural sport and has no traction in the largest cities. Of the 10 largest cities in Finland only two have a team in the league, and the largest city (Jyväskylä) has the lowest attendance. The team which has won the last four championships hails from a muncipality of 10k people.
Unlike the big success we've had in sports could suggest, we aren't really active in watching sport, and attendances are low in all leagues and sports. We have a long history in individual sports, and team sports really took off for real only in the late 50's. Organised supporter groups didn't form until the late 90's in football, and in hockey some established ones aren't even 10 years old yet. Therefore the general atmosphere in games are often quite sleepy, but the situation is improving, and I contribute to that.
Other sports which are popular are of course cross-country skiing, and also basketball has taken off due to success of the national team. Because we are not a sports nation - we are a success-hungry nation. Therefore Finns would follow, I don't know, watching grass grow if we would be successful internationally in it.
I follow only football and the basketball national team. I used to like ice hockey, but the arrogance of the Hockey Association, the closing of the league (no relegation or promotion), the forced unjust media hype and the development to a brutally violent and very rednecky sport has alienated me from hockey forever.
Unlike in most other nations where football is the sport of the working class, in Finland it's ice hockey, and football is considered more a sport for the educated. If you compare me with the poster Majurius, you notice which one of us likes football and which like hockey.
Cricket is certainly the true national sport, though the top 3 national television audiences for 2014 were all Rugby League. AFL certainly gets more bums on seats though.
Looking at it, that would be true, most "national" TV audiences you see in oz are actually capital city audiences and not national at all. The regions or NSW and QLD outside Sydney and Brisbane hold almost as many people as Victoria, for the most part it's die hard league territory.
I wonder how many other countries in the world have a situationist like we do, where what sport you support is traditionally decided by which state of the country you were born in?
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