New Kobe and Messi Commercial

[Mirjalovic]

Who's messi?

It's not that crazy a question. It's like asking someone in Europe who Tom Brady or Peyton manning or Lebron James is. It wouldnt be hard to find people who have never heard of them despite being the best in their sport. I would guess only 5% of America knows who Messi is, if that.

im indonesian but i knew guys you mentioned

[BadWolf]

I think the popularity of soccer overall is overblown. The gap isn't that large and it's largely #1 by being #2 most consistently. If you take the five most populous countries in the world, which make up more than half the world population, only one country (Brazil) has soccer as their overwhelming #1 sport. The top two countries, China and, India, which alone make up for almost 40% of the world population, soccer falls behind the likes of ping pong, basketball and Cricket. In the 3rd most populous nation (The US) Soccer is the least popular of the major sports. If you expand it to the top 10, only three countries (Nigeria, Brazil, and Russia) have soccer as their #1 sport. Don't get me wrong, it is the most popular sport in the world, but it's not as dominating as the FIFA marketing team would like you to think. They boast over 200 countries with soccer as their main sport, but most of those countries have a lower population than a big city in the US.

Also for Futbol snobs, the more common term in English is Soccer. A majority of the English speaking population call it Soccer. Even the English called it Soccer till somewhere in the 1970's and they're also the ones that came up with the term soccer for association football. Here's a map if you're curious.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... otball.png

English speaking countries that call it football basically consist of the UK and a few parts of Africa and the Carribean.

globally maybe, though china and india, fairly or not, are third world as far as marketing goes
you can't imagine how wide the gap between football and any other sport is in europe, specialy any other team sport. the same is probably even more true for latin america

[Don Draper]

I think the popularity of soccer overall is overblown. The gap isn't that large and it's largely #1 by being #2 most consistently. If you take the five most populous countries in the world, which make up more than half the world population, only one country (Brazil) has soccer as their overwhelming #1 sport. The top two countries, China and, India, which alone make up for almost 40% of the world population, soccer falls behind the likes of ping pong, basketball and Cricket. In the 3rd most populous nation (The US) Soccer is the least popular of the major sports. If you expand it to the top 10, only three countries (Nigeria, Brazil, and Russia) have soccer as their #1 sport. Don't get me wrong, it is the most popular sport in the world, but it's not as dominating as the FIFA marketing team would like you to think. They boast over 200 countries with soccer as their main sport, but most of those countries have a lower population than a big city in the US.

You didn't prove soccer isn't dominating. All you did was show soccer is not first every country and frankly that isn't saying much. If the gap isn't as large as you say it is then please tell us what sport is a close second?

[freestyler34]

I think they hit the right spot with the "Kobe vs Messi" thingy, at least on RealGM Lol .

[dautjazz]

I think the popularity of soccer overall is overblown. The gap isn't that large and it's largely #1 by being #2 most consistently. If you take the five most populous countries in the world, which make up more than half the world population, only one country (Brazil) has soccer as their overwhelming #1 sport. The top two countries, China and, India, which alone make up for almost 40% of the world population, soccer falls behind the likes of ping pong, basketball and Cricket. In the 3rd most populous nation (The US) Soccer is the least popular of the major sports. If you expand it to the top 10, only three countries (Nigeria, Brazil, and Russia) have soccer as their #1 sport. Don't get me wrong, it is the most popular sport in the world, but it's not as dominating as the FIFA marketing team would like you to think. They boast over 200 countries with soccer as their main sport, but most of those countries have a lower population than a big city in the US.

Also for Futbol snobs, the more common term in English is Soccer. A majority of the English speaking population call it Soccer. Even the English called it Soccer till somewhere in the 1970's and they're also the ones that came up with the term soccer for association football. Here's a map if you're curious.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... otball.png

English speaking countries that call it football basically consist of the UK and a few parts of Africa and the Carribean.

It's not really overblown, it's the most popular sport by quite a large margin. It' the number 1 sport for about half the population of the world! Then you have Cricket which is the #1 sport in India and Pakistan, but then it's a secondary sport. I would say the margin between Soccer and Cricket is probably 50% vs 25% as a primary sport. By comparison, American Football is the #1 sport in less than 5% of the world, so the margin is really just massive. If you want to look at general popularity, see below:

http://www.sporteology.com/top-10-popular-sports-world/
http://listdose.com/top-10-most-loved-s ... the-world/

[Jellybeans824]

I wish I was the girl behind him

[thewhat]

Worst possible group for the USA. Ghana knocked us out the last 2 world cups. CR7 is the best player in the world and will finally shine at the world cup. And Germany is my pick to make it all the way to the Finals. The US needs luck on its side to get out the group.

[DefenseWins]

So much for Kobe not being in commercials. This is an international commercial and damn it got 30mil views in 3 days... I don't think superbowl commercials get that much views.