Cultural Diversity & Sports

The first 40 years of my life have been somewhat nomadic in that I started out in my native Scotland before moving to Canada and finally ending up in my current location of Georgia in the US. During these travels I've been somewhat surprised to learn that people are all basically the same it's just their environment that's different. We all have the same problems for the most part, and find joy in similar types of entertainment. Where that similarity seems to split is in our embracing of sport. It's amazing to me that as similar as people are, how different the sporting tastes change from country to country.

Take soccer (or football as almost everyone else calls it). Its global appeal is huge yet it can't seem to find a foothold in North America, just about the only spot in the world where this is the case. Americans in particular seem to have a complete disdain for the sport and cling fiercely to their own sports, football, baseball, and basketball. They will claim that soccer is boring but will sit for 4 hours and watch men spitting and scratching themselves with the ball in play for a bout 5 minutes during that 4 hour period. It seems to me that Americans will only embrace a sport in which they excel and that hasn't been the case for them in soccer. Kids in the US have been raised playing and watching their traditional sports and have even combined them with holidays and seasons. I say Thanksgiving and the 2 things that spring to mind are turkey and football. Baseball has the boys of summer, spring training. You can mark your calendar to these sports. It's also interesting to note that the countries that excel in soccer are traditionally poorer countries (think of Brazil for example). You don't have to have a lot of money to get involved in playing. A cheap ball and jackets to mark goalposts are it. Just look at African nations at the moment who are beginning to make a major mark on the international soccer field...again it can be traced back to poorer countries and economies.

Canada's obsession with hockey is fairly easy to understand, as can be said for the other major hockey countries like Sweden, Finland etc., as they have very bleak winters and kids rush out to the frozen ponds to skate and play about the only sport you can play in the middle of a Canadian winter. Hockey is another sport that hasn't really caught on in the US except for places like Minnesota, and Detroit where, again, the winter climate is similar to their northern neighbors.

Even with a lesser sport like cricket, you can find those cultural ties that make it popular in certain countries. Traditionally an English sport, it is also very popular in Australia, India, and the West Indies to name a few which were all at one time or another part of the British Commonwealth and inhabited by British citizens who, no doubt, passed on their love of the sport to the locals.

You can find a couple of cultural anomalies that re hard to figure out. For example Japan's fascination with baseball and the current upsurge in popularity of basketball in countries as far afield as Argentina, China, and Croatia. I can only think that with satellite TV all over the world now, these countries are being exposed to more American sports and kids see the possibilities of getting t the US and getting very rich playing a game.
The one that is the most surprising to me though is a fairly new discovery to me. I live down here in the laid-back, slow-paced south where no-one ever seems to be in a hurry to do anything yet they are completely obsessed with the high speed intensity of NASCAR. That is one that I simply cannot explain.