By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Basketball as a whole is growing and becoming more loved outside of the US. In some recent statistics, we saw that over 75% of the NBA’s social media followers were from outside the US and the league also generated a record 26 billion views across all of their social media platforms.
This was a 22% increase from the previous year and it shows the global trajectory of the sport outside of the US. Because of this, more people are watching and most importantly for this article, more people are betting on the sport as a whole.
Below, we will look through the biggest sports in the world and how basketball compares to these sports.
The International Impact
We have mentioned the upward trajectory of the sport as a whole and this is shown by the sport’s global reach over the last decade or so. Outside of the NBA, there is the EuroLeague, College Basketball in the US and China’s CBA. These all grab millions of viewers throughout the year and this helps the betting side of the sport as a whole.
College basketball is one of the best bets on sporting events of the year because of March Madness. In a recent interview with online betting giant Boylesports, they stated that basketball is only gaining more bettors each year and that March Madness is a huge time for sports fans across the world which shows the global reach the sport is gaining, and as more basketball followers look to this sport to bet, the sport will only grow more.
What Sports Is It Competing With?
There are several sports across the world that have massive reach and have lots of bettors and the biggest is football. Football, or soccer, is the biggest sport in the world without question. Football is popular across the world and isn’t watched as much in the US and basketball is the opposite. This creates a funny dynamic between the sports as they both grow across the world and get more reach.
Football has many big leagues and tournaments that go on throughout the year that basketball struggles to keep up with. This is likely why football is bigger than basketball as there are more options for everyone around the world. Basketball has spent so long being mainly American, that the rest of the world has to catch up, whereas football has always been global.
Will Basketball Ever Be The Biggest Sport in The World?
There are several ways to answer this question depending on how it is asked. Whether the question is presented in the betting sector or in viewerships and fan participation, the sport will never be the biggest as long as football is around.
However, this is not something to be sad about, basketball is clearly on an upward trajectory and the sport itself seems to be growing globally as more fans are packing into stadiums around the world to watch basketball stars play.