Today the FIFA World Cup 2010 starts in South Africa. It will be the first time that the event takes place in the African continent. Soccer is the number one sport in the world. Possibly the only exception to that rule is the United States, where baseball is the number one sport.
It is the event with the largest following in the world. People across the globe will be connected watching the 32 national teams that reach the finals.
We always talk about the World Series for baseball, when there are only two countries playing baseball in Major League Baseball, and really only one team from the second country, Canada, that team being the Toronto Blue Jays. All the other teams are from the United States. Calling it the World Series is just as amusing as when we call the winner of the Super Bowl the World Champions. In Football it’s even more ironic as the teams are only Americans.
We also tend to think of the Super Bowl as the most viewed event of the world with a viewing of less the 200 million worldwide. The final game of the world cup on the other hand is viewed by more than 1 billion people.
You can draw your own conclusion with that comparison.
The only event with comparable viewership to the Soccer World Cup is the Summer Olympics.
Both events share the same sentiment of competitiveness and camaraderie.
Let us hope that these games are free of any terrorist incidents.
"hope" won't do it. Prayer might be a contribution. We've talked about "football" before. I've lived for extended time in several countries where football is the prime sport. I never could sustain an interest in it because only "legs" (and an occasional "head") seemed involved.
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