The globalization of American sports

A theme of Michael Mandelbaum’s The Meaning of Sports is that American sports don’t travel well beyond our borders. Indeed, David Samuels brought up this very question in his Atlantic profile of Condoleezza Rice. I’m increasingly wondering if this still holds up. To be sure, soccer/football remains the most popular global sport. However, the second ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

A theme of Michael Mandelbaum's The Meaning of Sports is that American sports don't travel well beyond our borders. Indeed, David Samuels brought up this very question in his Atlantic profile of Condoleezza Rice. I'm increasingly wondering if this still holds up. To be sure, soccer/football remains the most popular global sport. However, the second most popular sport is basketball -- invented in the U.S.A. The globalization of baseball -- through imports like Daisuke Matsuzaka and exports like the World Baseball Classic -- is also proceeding apace. The claim that American sports aren't followed outside of the U.S. rests primarily on American football, which is generally viewed by non-Americans as only slightly less offensive than dwarf-tossing. Again, if this AP report is correct, I'm no longer sure if this holds: The first regular season NFL game outside North America is shaping up as a hot ticket. The first 40,000 tickets for the Oct. 28 game between the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants at the new Wembley Stadium sold in 90 minutes Wednesday. "The speed in which such a large number of tickets were snapped up ... demonstrates the great excitement and appetite for the game in this country," said Alistair Kirkwood, managing director of NFL UK. "We know that the last few tickets available in this first batch will be gone very soon."None of these sports will eclipse soccer -- but that doesn't mean that they are globally unpopular.

A theme of Michael Mandelbaum’s The Meaning of Sports is that American sports don’t travel well beyond our borders. Indeed, David Samuels brought up this very question in his Atlantic profile of Condoleezza Rice. I’m increasingly wondering if this still holds up. To be sure, soccer/football remains the most popular global sport. However, the second most popular sport is basketball — invented in the U.S.A. The globalization of baseball — through imports like Daisuke Matsuzaka and exports like the World Baseball Classic — is also proceeding apace. The claim that American sports aren’t followed outside of the U.S. rests primarily on American football, which is generally viewed by non-Americans as only slightly less offensive than dwarf-tossing. Again, if this AP report is correct, I’m no longer sure if this holds:

The first regular season NFL game outside North America is shaping up as a hot ticket. The first 40,000 tickets for the Oct. 28 game between the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants at the new Wembley Stadium sold in 90 minutes Wednesday. “The speed in which such a large number of tickets were snapped up … demonstrates the great excitement and appetite for the game in this country,” said Alistair Kirkwood, managing director of NFL UK. “We know that the last few tickets available in this first batch will be gone very soon.”

None of these sports will eclipse soccer — but that doesn’t mean that they are globally unpopular.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

Tag: Sports

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