Quote:
Originally Posted by valo403
That's where you're going to point? Really? A country that goes bat#### for a couple of sports, two of which it plays almost exclusively, and couldn't care less about anything else? That sounds familiar doesn't it?
AFL and NRL games are packed, Super 14 varies by team and season to season and cricket has a decent following for big tests. AFL and NRL passion and attendance is about on par with what Canada has for hockey, and don't try to count that as two national sports because outside of NSW and Queensland people don't care about NRL and in NSW and Queensland the appetite for AFL is relatively small. Canada can add the CFL to it's list, which more than offsets the cricket following in Australia.
Now let's discuss Scotland. Yep, they have second and third (if not below) soccer. Well that's great. And they have some rugby. Okay. And?
The masses in Canada have a longing for plenty of sports, the fact that they aren't women's basketball (which absolutely no country has a longing for, let's see those packed attendance figures for your Australian league) and badminton  doesn't change that. Hockey, football, baseball, basketball and soccer all have large followings in Canada. I can point to second and third tier leagues in each of those sports if you'd like, or I can point you to a sports bar on an evening with a big game in any of those sports being played.
Somehow you've confused the presence of top level sports teams with a passion for a sport. Oddly enough you've also pointed at the presence of lower level teams in other nations as some sort of proof, which is quite convenient. Canada doesn't have an NFL team because there's only one city (maybe 2 with Vancouver) that fits the mold of an NFL city from a financial standpoint. The same goes for MLB and the NBA. That's going to happen when you're a small country and you are talking about the absolute highest level leagues in the world. |
There were plenty of examples and you chose to ignore them. Countries with less population by far and still with top level, 2nd level, 3rd level and beyond in the sports they are passionate about. Scotland with a population that probably ain't more than the GTA has an entire league of professionally paid soccer players. Two pro teams of rugby playing at the highest level. Plenty of leagues under that. Denmark with the same sort of population with tons of professional teams and able to compete on the highest level with a fraction of our population. Sweden with only 9 million people again with multiple leagues.
Plenty of other countries could be listed and you want to compare that with--oh yeah we have more people sitting in bars watching TV.
Face the facts. Sports in this country is horridly supported. You can go to a high school game of any sport and the crowd will be in the tens. Go to a Uni game of any sport and you might crack into a thousand or so. Meanwhile in some little hick town in the States they will get thousands for a game of anything.
Hundreds of thousands showing up every week all over the USA to watch dang near anything. 300 million to 30 having very little to do with it because they have so many more teams they support. They have sports engrained in the culture. We don't. As does many a country in Europe and Asia and elsewhere. Just not a Canadian thing.
Oh and that women's basketball league in Australia gives women a chance to play at the highest level. Women from that league have moved on to play in the WNBA. Where is that opportunity for women in any sport in Canada?
That's the real crux of it. There should be all kinds of opportunity for our athletes. There should be a least a bush league for basketball along the lines of the CFL. Certainly should be able to have a whole bunch of MLS teams. We are willing to support a far, far watered down product from the NFL in the CFL so why not for basketball, soccer and baseball? Or anything for women whatsoever.
Why do we have such pathetic support for our University teams? Are you going to tell me that in the US they have huge crowds at hundreds of Uni's for all kinds of sports because of their population?