Why is the World Cup so influential?

Football is the first sport in the world.

I believe no one will question this. Football is a sport that doesn't need any equipment or even a venue (we have heard too many stories of star players when they were young, and they couldn't afford football at home, so they changed into other simple spherical things and played football in the streets), so they won the love of the broad masses of the people. After it spread to all parts of the world through British immigrants and colonists, football became more popular in the third world. That's all. In addition, there is a point that football requires relatively low physical conditions for athletes. Unlike basketball, it is really difficult for the yellow race to compete with Europeans and Americans in height and physical quality (which also highlights Yao Ming's outstanding ability). This means that football powers will not be limited to a few countries, and many countries have the ability to become football powers or enter the World Cup.

Now in Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, football is the first sport.

As for rugby and cricket popular in Commonwealth countries, baseball and American football in the United States, ice hockey in Canada and the United States, and Australian regular football in Australia are more popular in the local area. Because these sports have a longer history than football, they have always had more markets. However, although these sports are very popular in their respective countries, from the perspective of the world, the number of football fans must far exceed the fans of these sports. In this case, the FIFA World Cup, as the highest level of the world's first sport at the national team level, is also the most extensive event covering countries and regions, and naturally becomes the focus of attention.

In contrast, although the Olympic Games covers the most sports, its core sports-track and field and swimming-are not sports with fanatical fans all over the world. There is a saying that "football is round." The meaning behind this sentence is that anything dramatic can happen on the football field, so that the audience can be more attracted by it. Of course, not only is football round, but other ball games are also very dramatic. Track and field and swimming can't do this, so there are few enthusiastic fans of these two sports.

Moreover, (this is a big one) these ball games mentioned above, which are popular in some specific countries and regions, can't be found in the Olympic Games (baseball has disappeared recently, because there is a conflict between the Olympic Games and Major League Baseball in the United States, and the competitiveness and excitement of the Olympic baseball game can't be compared with Major League Baseball in the United States) (perhaps the only exception is ice hockey in the Winter Olympics). In many Olympic events, the audience will only pay attention to the Olympic Games (especially when there are enough athletes competing for medals in our country).

Therefore, although the importance of the Olympic Games is beyond doubt. But with so many events in the Olympic Games, there may not be as many fanatical fans as football. Most spectators watch the Olympic Games from the perspective that athletes can win glory for their country-not only in the mainland, but all over the world, and people of all countries have a sense of collective honor. In this way, if a country does not have top athletes in any sports of the Olympic Games, then the audience in this country will pay much less attention to this sport. But football is not, because there are too many countries that love football in the world, but the number of places to participate in the World Cup is limited. Therefore, even if the national team fails to enter the World Cup, this country will have a large audience. For example, in this World Cup, only China, Sweden, Ukraine, Scotland, Wales and Balkan countries in Europe, and other countries in the Middle East except Iran, Peru and Paraguay in South America failed to enter the World Cup, but there are not a few fans in these countries who are concerned about the World Cup. Not to mention the Olympic Games, no sport in the world can do this.