Sports play a huge role now days, people all around the world compete and have passion for it. Millions of people are following and discussing sports in a daily basis. The improvements made in media and increased internet access across the world have resulted in how these days we can watch pretty much any type of sport event around the world. A map I want to talk about is one which identifies popular sports across the world and what each country favors the most as of 2015. It is really interesting to see how different culture, climate changes and historical events have a huge influence behind the popularity of each sport in various countries.
Football, or I should say soccer, is leading the world in popularity, as we can see in the map. More than half of the map is colored in green, which represents football. Europe, South America and Africa are the main continents related to this game. Why? During a typical soccer match, every position on the field has an equal opportunity to handle the ball. If a particular player does not handle the ball it is often their choice, but certainly not the coach’s choice. This ability to interact with the ball anywhere on the field makes it an easy and very popular sport, one of the few sports where nothing changes for either girls or boys that play. Rules are the same for both… All you need are friends, a ball, and some space. We see people using an empty parking lots, the streets, abandoned spaces or the beach. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), “estimated that at the turn of the 21st century there were approximately 250 million football players and over 1.3 billion people “interested” in football; in 2010 a combined television audience of more than 26 billion watched football’s premier tournament, the quadrennial month-long World Cup finals”( Britannica, 2017). Once again it shows how passionate people are in this world wide sport because, of its elementary style and beauty. It shows us how different cultures affect the spread of sports geographically, in this case soccer is heavily favored in South America, Africa and Europe.
Upper North America is all about the ice hockey witch did not really surprised me, but it is fascinating to see how the whole country of Canada is marked blue, without any exceptions, while the United States of America has multiple sports involved as every state presents their own favorite sport, whether American football, basketball or baseball. It is nice to see how less popular sports are being represented by little countries, which shows long kept traditions their culture and hobbies. Sports like table tennis, kick boxing, wrestling, skiing, and archery are great examples of it. I was impressed by the fact that cricket is so popular in Australia and some parts of Asia. Every culture brings in something new. We clearly see how different territories represent various interests. Football, hockey, cricket or American football show that each country has a story behind it. A map lets us see how each country contributes and adds something new to this sports map because of their background and choices made as a nation.
Decisions made by the author of the map should not have been hard because the context was not complicated or attached to any sort of projections or political boundaries. In this case a regular map set up was choose, this is just a data represented in a different style in order to show the interest of people across the world. Football, also known as soccer is no doubt a leading sport in the world today, but different ethnicities tend to follow their own hobbies and beliefs, as the map represents some unique sports and countries all around the world. It is hard to critique this map because not a lot information is given besides the legend. Such as the data and where it is coming from, or was it an accurate work of cartography. We can only assume and enjoy the diversity of sports represented around the world, which provides us enjoyment and a cultural context.
Works Cited
FunBuzzTime. “Different Types of World Maps.” FunBuzzTime, 9 Sept. 2015, www.funbuzztime.com/different-types-of-world-maps/.
Joy, Bernard, et al. “Football.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 15 Aug. 2017, www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer.
Tomas,
I am very fascinated by this map. I think for you and I especially, sports play a huge role in our life. But I don’t think we understand how many lives sports have an impact on all over the world and I think this map allows us to see how sports are all over the world and are a lot bigger in other countries.
I really liked your style of writing. I think every time there was a fact, I was learning something new and it happened A LOT. I also like how you pulled the quote from FIFA and incorporated it into your writing. I know many people would think sports are very simplistic but you go in depth to talk about the dramatic impacts sports play.