Baseball And Cricket: Which Is More Popular? Let’s Learn About Popularity In Every Sector

In the sports world, many people get into debates such as baseball and cricket: which is more popular?

Although these two sports are totally different, people still look to debate on some points. And as they both are popular in different regions, the debate gets more fired up.

Some say cricket, and some say baseball. If you are also in the same loophole and eager to learn which one is more popular, you are in the right place. I have gathered up a lot of information, did some comparison checking, and found some results of my own.

Many individuals say cricket is more popular than baseball, but is it right? Let’s study their whereabouts and other things, and you decide for yourself which one is more popular.

Let’s Learn about the Games First

I know you have great knowledge about the games. But if we go through each and every fact, then we can compare them better than others, right?

Baseball

Governed By: World Baseball Softball Confederation

Known As: Bat and Ball Game

Origin: North America

Number of Players: Two Teams, Each Composed of Nine Players

Stadium Shape: Square/Diamond

As time is gradually passing, I have seen many baseball players unaware of the history of baseball and how the game came alive. The game has a broad history with so many rules and terminologies. The rules changed gradually from time to time. 

There are many leagues, such as Major League, Minor League, Negro League, and many more, that plays baseball. Among the leagues, you will find professional players with great stats.

I really love to watch baseball as the games give me chills every time I watch. What are your thoughts about baseball matches?

Cricket

Governed By: International Cricket Council

Known As: Bat and Ball Game

Origin: South-East England

Number of Players: Two Teams, Each Containing Eleven Players

Stadium Shape: Circular/Oval-Shaped

Cricket is one of the most known games worldwide nowadays. As a sports geek, I watch almost all types of sports. From what I learned from cricket, South-Asian countries are dominating it.

All those things apart, there are many rules and terminologies to learn when we are talking about cricket. Similar to baseball, there are many leagues in cricket too. Let me give you some names to refresh your memories: IPL (Indian Premier League), Caribbean Premier League, Pakistan Super League, Bangladesh Premier League, etc.

I have only been given a pond of leagues that are played in cricket. There are many more leagues that you will find or may watch. Let’s talk about them later on.

How Can I Measure Which Game Is More Popular Between Baseball and Cricket?

It can be a very hard task to compare and find results, and I am one of those victims. Do not worry, it was a joke only. After some extreme research, surveys, and benchmark studies, I got some great ways to measure the popularity of these two games.

And here are the points that you will go through that will help you to understand the popularity of these two amazing games – 

• Popularity in Participation in the Games
• Global Popularity (Regional and By Country)
• Television Rating Point in Sports
• Fanbase and Their Reactions
• Iconic Moments That Uplifted the Popularity of the Games

Baseball and Cricket: Which Is More Popular?

I know learning about the game does not imply the popularity of the games. Then how to know which one is popular?

After doing some deep research, I have found a way to make a popularity comparison that will satisfy your ideologies regarding the topic. So, let’s not wait any further and find out which one is more popular and why.

Popularity in Participation

This is the first comparison that I want to show you. Because there are many factors you can compare when you are doing a popularity comparison, but they provide vague answers.

But when you check the participation in the games every year, you will definitely know the advantage in popularity of a game.

Participants in Baseball

Now, let’s come back to the topic, how many participants are there in baseball?

I found out from the research that over 60 million participants are there who play in different leagues in baseball and softball. In fact, around 30 million people in the US play baseball. It can be hard to believe at first, but facts are facts.

Can you believe the number of players playing within 140 countries? The participating sides are such as 

• Professional Baseball, 
• College Baseball,
• High School Baseball,
• Youth Baseball, etc.

Now, all the players normally play within these boundaries. But the number can be more, because baseball is not a game within those boundaries. There may be more non-registered players, too, who love to play baseball.

Participants in Cricket

Do you think the participation of cricket players is more than baseball players? Unfortunately, my research says a big no on that. If I count the registered participants, there are 30 million more or fewer players in the world. Most of them are playing in Asia.

Now, similar to baseball, there are some divisions of participants in cricket too. I am adding those divisions of participants below – 

• Professional Cricket, 
• Domestic Cricket,
• Club Cricket,
• Youth Cricket.

Although there are fewer participants in cricket than in baseball, the number of professional cricket players actually skyrockets from professionals from baseball.

There are more than 4,000 players who play professionally in cricket, whereas the number of professional baseball players is around 1,000. Can you imagine the difference here?

Popularity in Global Reach

We all can assume cricket’s influence is almost all over the world (mostly in South Asia), but baseball has its own global reach too. To learn about the popularity of global reach, I need to provide you with some data to make you understand which one is popular in this section.

Baseball Global Reach

I have already told you above that baseball has reached around 140 countries, right? Among all those countries, baseball has a lot of influence in the United States and South Korea. 

All the countries that have gotten baseball influence are on six different continents. So, what do you think of how baseball has gained popularity in these countries? I think having these many countries and people within them makes them highly popular across the globe.

Cricket Global Reach

Cricket has also got to the point where it can be almost as popular globally as baseball. With 104 member countries on the board of ICC, they are making huge progress in influencing people to get their heads inside the game.

Many people outside these 104 countries also love to play cricket too. I do not know how, but cricket has made a soft corner for almost all the countries in the whole world. And the way they are gaining popularity, they will soon get the popularity of almost the whole world.

There are some countries where cricket influenced a lot, and some did not. South Asian countries love this sport. And the most influential country for this game is India.

Only knowing about these two sports’ popularity can be short, right? Why don’t you check out the 15 most popular sports in the world? Some may catch your attention strongly.

Popularity in Television Rating and Viewership

Influencing offline is not the only part these amazing sports are doing. They are also creating their rules online too. One of the things we can measure between baseball and cricket is their television rating. 

Now, how can this help to measure which one is more popular? People nowadays watch a lot of television and stay online. So, in my opinion, the more the television rating will show, the more popular sports will be. 

So then, let’s check out which sport is more popular in television ratings.

Baseball in Television Rating

The television viewership and ratings gave me an idea about how strong baseball is holding this area. Some of the season’s tv ratings were great, some fell down. But the average says the popularity of baseball is always at the top of the locals. 

Although the game is so popular for every individual, their television rating drops every two years. The numbers were good at the very beginning. But at the midpoint, the number has declined a lot. 

On average, the television rating of this sport is around 1.5 million, more or less. Although they got reduced from a very good peak, they still are getting acknowledged by people a lot.

Cricket in Television Rating

What you heard about baseball rating is nothing compared to cricket rating. Cricket lovers actually love to watch the games so much that their television ratings go very high all the seasons.

The average audience of cricket is around 9 million. That shows how popular cricket is in television ratings. Even I got surprised by watching the number gap between baseball and cricket.

The most-viewed cricket match happened in 2018. They jumped everything and went past 11 million, which is a very big number. That is why they got fame over television ratings easily.

Fanbase and Fandom

One of the most important parts of a game is its fans. The more fans, the more fun to watch the game too. It shows how the fans and the game are devoted to each other. Although baseball got a severe defeat while checking the popularity in television ratings and viewership, will it pass in fanbase and fandom?

Baseball Fanbase

Even though I am a baseball lover, I am sad to say the fanbase of baseball is not as big as cricket. The differences made me realize not all the people of the world become fans of a sport. 

An average estimation says that there are only 500 million fans out there who love baseball. The numbers can go up and down as many people change their opinions. 

Cricket Fanbase

Compared to the baseball fanbase, the cricket fan base has annihilated them totally. With a huge fan base in India, the number of estimated fans has peaked at around 2.5 billion. Can you imagine how big the fan base is?

Yes, I know that the number of baseball fans increase because of the huge number of US fans. But Cricket out peaked them by having all the Indian fans who grabbed the top seats of the fan base.

Comparatively, cricket is known to have the 2nd most fanbase in sports in the whole world.

Popularity in Iconic Moments

Every game has its iconic moments. That is why we see histories. They become iconic because those moments are precious and happen 1 in a million. And those moments can show how popular a sport is. 

That is why I made a comparison of the popularity of both games’ iconic moments. Let’s see which one gets more popularity.

Baseball Iconic Moments 

There are many iconic moments that I have watched in my whole life in baseball. Some of them I gathered from research, and some I watched by myself. Here are some of the most iconic moments in baseball history – 

• Pete Rose Breaks Ty Cobb’s 57-Year-Old Hit Record.
• Babe Ruth Calling His Shots Out.
• Hank Aaron Breaking Babe Ruth’s Previous Record of 715 Home Runs.
• Dock Ellis Throwing No-Hitters.
• Powerful Randy Johnson Throw Kills a Bird. To see how it happened, Like. Let’s enjoy the short video about it.

There are many more popular iconic moments in baseball. But we need to check out cricket’s iconic moments, too, as for the comparisons.

Cricket Iconic Moments

As an old sport, I have watched cricket a lot. There are so many iconic moments in cricket that you can not imagine. Some went popular, some did not. 

But do not worry. I have gathered up some of the most iconic moments in cricket history that gave cricket so much popularity. If you do not want to miss them, check them out – 

• Destruction of Wasim Akram over England in the 1992 Final.
• Kevin O’Brien Helped Ireland Stun England in the 2011 World Cup.
• Australia Defying the Odds to Beat South Africa in 1999 World Cup.
• South Africa’s Suffering in the Rain in 2003 World Cup.
• Herschelle Gibbs Hit 6 consecutive Sixes in 2007.

You can decide by yourself which iconic moment got the most popularity. I have given my own data that I have collected. 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why Is Cricket the 2nd Most Popular Sport in the World?

There are many reasons why cricket is so popular. But the main reason behind cricket being the 2nd most popular sport is because of its fanbase. They took the whole thing to another level.

The fans are almost all over the globe. Not only that, they are supportive of the players too.

2. Why Doesn’t Cricket Get a Good Popularity in the US, Just Like Baseball?

Most of you may have this common question as to why cricket does not get as much popularity as baseball in the US. The origin of the baseball game is in the US. And as people are playing baseball so much, they do not have time to watch cricket.

Also, cricket is popular in South Asian countries. As a matter of fact, they do not try to play baseball. This works like vice-versa. 

Final Thoughts

After all the research, you may get your answer. So, I want to ask you about Baseball and Cricket: Which Is More Popular?

If you say cricket, then you are right. We need to take the fact that their fan base is huge and they are also popular almost all over the world. But still, loving sports is not about popularity, it is about the game. 

Let’s all enjoy the games with harmony and make history from here and out. 

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