England is the only European country where cricket, a bat-and-ball sport which often sounds far more complex than it really is, is a popular and mainstream sport, although it is immensely popular in some other regions notably the Indian Subcontinent, Australia and New Zealand. Ireland has recently gained full status for playing the highest level of international games, but it's not especially popular or mainstream there. Also in Europe, Scotland and the Netherlands have associate status for lower-level internationals and Wales has representation in the English domestic leagues, but it's not particularly popular in any of those countries either.

Does your country have any popular sports which aren't as popular or well-known in the rest of Europe?


9 comments

  1. In Denmark badminton is a huge sport, and we seem to be the only European country that can compete with the Asians in it.

  2. Eisstockschießen / Ice stock sport

    But it’s not very popular with young people as far as i see, and gets more and more niche

  3. GAA, so hurling and Gaelic football. Only really a thing in Ireland. Maybe handball too?

  4. Waterpolo. Hungary traditionally is among the best waterpolo nations in the world, but this is because only a handful of other countries take this sport seriously: Jugoslavia (and its followup countries like Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro), Italy, Spain; USA recently. Those countries who participate but aren’t very good regularly end up getting beaten like 20-2 and such even in world cups or at the olympics.

    To show how a provincial sport is: every athlete who participated in gold medal winning teams at the olympics in waterpolo after 2000 was born inside this circle: https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/484656658_979967120912565_8509942409846208569_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=lDPhV4-V1YwQ7kNvwE5HYbm&_nc_oc=AdnaOIHgGmqPumFR20Fti0GKiiTNHEGyc1sWLj71fVHYEy6RphW-y1eFEiWC7bSQdCs&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-vie1-1.xx&_nc_gid=ymjO1KaLMBdyaYSnlrUppQ&oh=00_AfLAjG0t9CArZI3_RvJK2ZZmL3UeeP8J51kz9olpjqY0kg&oe=6844A409

    But we like it very much.

  5. All the winter sports of course. Not unique to us, as most countries with lots of mountains and/or snow have them, but there are significant parts of Europe where they are not too popular.

  8. Pesäpallo, or finnish baseball, isn’t really played anywhere else to extent it’s played here.

    I think here Pesäpallo has the 3rd largest fanbase of the team sports after ice hockey and football. It’s also our national sport.

  9. Ice skating is a big deal in the Netherlands and I don’t think there’s any country that loves race cycling as much as Belgium. These are also the only two countries to ever win a korfball world cup.

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