Why is basketball so unpopular in the UK but nowhere else in Europe?
Posted by boyski33@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 15 comments
Self-explanatory. I like my life in London very much, but one thing I miss is a general passion for basketball. Most countries around Europe (and maybe the world) have basketball as a top sport with a big fan base. In the UK, however, I have probably met a couple of Brits that kinda follow it. Whenever I visit the court at the local park, most players are foreign. I find it very bizarre, especially with its rise in popularity in the past decade.
Mistress_LeatherBeth@reddit
Basketball is a freak show, played by genetic defectives and glandular malfunctions. There is neither skill nor talent in being too tall for polite society. Even if you could name me 100 top players below 5'10", 99% of British people would never have heard of them. Raise the basket or change the rules in some other way to make the sport less freakish and more attractive. Otherwise, British people will just find basketball ridiculous.
Narttu@reddit
Basketball is a highly skilled sport, one of the highest skilled if anything. Also its not really true that British people find it "ridiculous". Back in the 90s the NBA actually got pretty damn popular here and the domestic league was catching fire.
HopefulRecognition55@reddit
Not a lot of tall lads in England
Narttu@reddit
Lol what? every rugby team has multiple basketball player tall guys in the lock position.
JebusKristi@reddit
We have football.
Deep-Adhesiveness-69@reddit
football is shit dont know why its so popular, idiots get paid millions to kick a plastic ball around like a toddler
11Alive11@reddit
Which sucks.
Sandycroftk@reddit
Because it's shit.
Deep-Adhesiveness-69@reddit
football is shit imo
Particular-Zombie501@reddit
Not nice
FrankieBoy984@reddit
Explain.
Gasblaster2000@reddit
Perhaps because the sport basketball is based on, netball, is already a thing here?
Same for baseball (rounders) and American football (rugby) I would think
Galumpadump@reddit
Netball was created as a variation of Basketball.
gattomeow@reddit
Might be because it's one of those sports where you can't really get hurt/injured playing it, so it's viewed as a bit "unmanly".
With football, cricket, rugby etc. it's perceived that you need to have a bit of "bravery" to do certain things within the game, whilst basketball doesn't really involve any physical contact or a hard ball being hurled at you.
Up till quite recently PE at school was often run by disciplinarians who wanted to see a bit of suffering - so you often got gender divides where cricket was deemed a boys' sport whilst tennis was considered a girls' sport, despite the fact that Men's Tennis is pretty big, as is Women's Cricket these days.
FrankieBoy984@reddit
Did you just say cricket is more physical than basketball?? Talk about delusional.