If you are reading this, there is a huge probability that you are clueless about how baseball is played. Although many people know one or two things about the sport, expect you are from a country where baseball thrives, you might never get to know anything about this beautiful sport.
In this post, we want to check baseball popularity across each continent. Which countries participate most in baseball? If you are looking for an answer to the question, “Where is baseball played around the world?”, then you should read on!
Africa
South Africa remains the only African country that can boast of participating in a baseball league or competition. It’s one of the least popular and less played sports in Africa. While there is no direct link to why baseball lives on obscurity in Africa, it can be attributed to the absence of baseball experts, which results in little or no interest. We do hope that other African countries can embrace baseball in the nearest future.
Asia
With more than 80 teams across Asian countries, baseball is one of the mainstays of sport in Asia. That Israel alone account for 5 baseball leagues says it all! Almost all Asian countries partake in baseball, including Japan, South Korea, Philippines, UAE, Saudi Arabia and several others. Competitions are behind held across Asian nations for many decades. Surprisingly, Taiwan is the most active Asian country in baseball. They only come second to the United States in terms of the highest Little League World Championship won.
Europe
Baseball is quite popular in Europe, but not as that of football. This is evidenced by a combination of Italy, and the Netherlands, with 25 European titles between them out of 27. Although the sport is played in several European countries such as France, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, and Russia. However, Spain and Belgium are the other two European countries to win the remaining two titles. Baseball in British is a bit strange, with 11 players in each team. Officially, the UK has no official baseball professional at the moment.
North America
North America is the hub of baseball in the world. This is partly because the region birthed baseball as a sport. Baseball features in the top 3 popular games in both the United States and Mexico. In terms of revenue, baseball in North America has generated billions of dollars due to its growing fame.
Also, in Canada, baseball is only second to hockey in terms of popularity. The U. S has the highest number of pro baseball players and the country activity on baseball has a direct impact on the financial capacity of the sport. The U. S boasts thousands of baseball teams and leagues. Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico are other North American countries where baseball is popular.
South America
Unlike in North America, baseball in South America is less recognised. However, it’s played virtually everywhere on the continent. Brazil’s baseball body is governed by CBBS since 1990, and they have minor competition across each state. Venezuela is another South American country that participates well in the baseball league. The country’s national team do participate in regional Championships in South America. Venezuela has two Caribbean Series to its name.
Oceania
New Zealand is the chief representative of the Oceania countries in baseball. It has the national baseball leagues and other competitions in the Kiwi nation supervised by New Zealand Baseball Association. Many Kiwis are professional baseball players in the MLB with the national team competing Baseball Confederation of Oceania (BCO).
Australia is also active in baseball. Alongside New Zealand, they partake in the Australian Provincial Championship. Baseball’s popularity continues to soar in Australia.
For Fiji Island, Baseball is still at the infant level. However, there has been a concerted effort to push it up in the past few years. Last year saw the Fiji U12 Baseball rams qualified for the U12 Championship held in Taiwan.
Conclusion
As a global sport, baseball is gaining massive recognition. At this rate, only time will tell when it will be played and discussed as much as football. If that should ever happen, it will be interesting to see how Nigeria fares. Got any questions? Feel free to ask below.