For much of the 20th century South America was actually seen as the heartland of football with Europe being seen more as a secondary region. In the 21st century things have very much shifted to Europe now, however do you ever see the shift back happening?
Seriously, every other vid on tiktok now about Tyla are Nigerians or Nigerian adjacent creators attacking her and calling her new album a flop.
Why are they targeting her now?
Is it a relatively recent phenomenon that football players legacies come to be defined by how successful they were at the European club level?
You'll often hear about how fast some American football, soccer, or NBA players are and how well they might have done in track. Whether that's true for any current athletes or not, it does make you wonder if potentially elite athletes from years past who might have gone into track from childhood are now being drawn into other, more lucrative sports instead.
It raises the question of whether track is missing out on some of these elite athletes.
In Jamaica, track is a very respected and lucrative sport, so the best of the best do want to get into track. That seems less true in many other countries.
When Vince Carter exploded as a star on the relatively young Toronto Raptors franchise, he sparked a massive surge in basketball's popularity across Canada. To the point where Canada now produces more NBA players than any country outside the United States, with the league's most recent MVP also being Canadian.
Before Vince Carter, that would have been very hard to imagine for an almost purely hockey obsessed country. His influence was so significant that it became the subject of a documentary, The Carter Effect.
The United States is arguably the most star-driven sports market in the world. If American soccer were ever to produce its own Vince Carter, or a homegrown superstar on the level of Haaland, Mbappé, or Lamine, could that have a similar effect? Could one transcendent domestic star dramatically accelerate the sport's popularity and inspire the next generation of elite American players.
On the surface, soccer’s growing popularity can only seem like a good thing. However, the US domestic league is the MLS, which will then have the burden of not only competing against the traditional Big 4 North American sports but also now the biggest soccer league in the world for eye balls and dollars.
Messi didn't grow up in a wealthy family, but he did grow up in one with the means to find a way to afford the expensive HGH treatments that prevented Lionel from reaching his predicted adult height of only 4'7". By medical definitions, he likely would have been considered a person with dwarfism, so it's hard to believe he could have ever gone on to become a professional footballer without that
With all the talk of the NFL expanding outside the US one day, Mexico, UK, why hasn't the league established itself in nearby Toronto yet? The NHL, MLB, NBA have had franchises there going back decades now. Why the NFL holdout for Toronto?
Do the Bills really consider it part of their territory?
The 2026 Super Bowl got 125 million viewers, while the USA-Belgium World Cup game got just over 50 million viewers. How high do you think this Sunday's Spain-Argentina final will get?
At this point, based on how long this film has been marinating, arguably the longest for any comic book film in history, is it fair to expect it to be one of the best superhero films ever? It may not be a fair expectation but I assume it will exist.
All the African World Cup teams were either from north, west, or central africa, with no eastern african teams represented. Is that mainly due to the lesser popularity soccer in that region of Africa? Kenya, for example, is pretty renowned for producing elite track athletes which you'd think would have some overlap with success in soccer.
Over 50 million watched the game against Belgium in the round of 16 in the US. The typical Superbowl game gets 100-120+ million viewers.
Would Messi's Miami team be in the mix if they competed in Europe?
If Messi's Inter Miami were allowed to compete in any of the major European leagues, where would they find themselves?