Football is, without a doubt, the most popular sport in the world. Every year, billions of people sit in front of their televisions, smartphones, and other gadgets to watch teams play in different parts of the world. This is not to say that other sports, like Rugby, don’t have a massive following. On the contrary, they do have billions of supporters, but football dwarfs all of them.
So, what appeal does football have over other sports? Why do many people watch the sport and follow its happenings throughout the year? This is what this article addresses.
Football has many events throughout the year
There’s not a single day of the year that you will not find a football match to watch. Even the most sacred holidays in a calendar year usually have an event or two to watch. This is possible thanks to the fact that there are different leagues worldwide that play during different times of the year.
Rugby, on the other hand, tends to be limited to a few countries in the world. Only countries such as England, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, and France actively have rugby leagues and competitions.
Football has easy-to-understand rules
Football is a game that requires skill and strategy to play. Rugby, on the other hand, is more of a physical contact game. Because of this, the rules involved in football are easy and simpler to understand, which makes it easy for many people to follow.
Compared to football, the rules of Rugby are more sophisticated and require an in-depth understanding of the game to get to grasps with the game. This discourages many players from trying to understand or follow it.
Many betting opportunities
Sports betting activities with platforms like the 1Win app have become quite common. More and more people are jumping onto the sports betting pastime, either as full or part-time punters. Nonetheless, people want to wager on events that offer them many markets, events throughout the years, and easy-to-understand rules.
Therefore, as discussed above, these are all qualities that can be found in football. Not only are there many events to wager on throughout the year, but there are also plenty of markets to wager on. While rugby matches can offer about 70 markets on average, football betting has over 250 in some of the top betting sites.
Unpredictability
If you love thrill and unpredictability, there’s no better sport to watch than football. You never know who is going to win the match. Any team, regardless of how weak it may seem, has a chance of winning after the final whistle is blown.
For example, consider the season when Leicester City FC won the league in 2015 at odds of 5,000/1. When you are given such odds, the chances of winning the event are close to none. Furthermore, the team had just been promoted from the Championship and was under new management. But to everyone’s surprise, they beat the best teams in the EPL and won the league.
In Rugby and other forms of betting like Golf, it is hard to see such happenings. In fact, there are teams that you can easily back to win the league, reach a certain point of the competition, or even pull certain performances without breaking a sweat as long as you know the sport.
History
If you are looking for one of the oldest sports in the world, look no further than football. According to FIFA, there have been traces of ‘ball games’ similar to football being played as early as 200 BC in the United Kingdom. Of course, a lot has changed since then in terms of rules and how the game is played, but it still remains the oldest sport. In fact, since the first official football team in the UK, Sheffield FC, was founded, there have been over 1000 changes to the rules of football.
On the other hand, rugby is a relatively ‘new’ sport, having only been founded in 1823. According to the official World Rugby website, the first game was invented in the town of Rugby when a young chap by the name of William Webb Ellis picked up a football ball and started running to the opposite side of the goal line.
Conclusion
Football is a big sport worldwide and is greatly engraved in many cultures. The simplicity in its rules, the readily available games to watch throughout the year, and ease of access makes it a popular game to watch. Moreover, the ability to wager on these many events makes it more appealing than any other sport, including rugby. In fact, on average, each sporting event comes with at least 50 markets, with some of the top events featuring over 150 markets to wager on.
