The Cricket Factor
"I mean, obviously, if we look at German football and German field hockey, the popularity ratio will be 100:1, but field hockey or football still isn't treated with the kind of hatred we see among different sports fans wars here in Pakistan. Most Germans themselves don't even know that their hockey team has four World Cups, just like their football team. However, we think that if cricket's popularity declines, we will grow in football, which is such a stupid logic.
Very few people now watch hockey, but it still holds value because it is an Olympic sport. Remember, hockey stadiums used to be packed during the Olympics (like seen in the Hitler footage archives ). Today, even a 15k-capacity hockey stadium doesn't fill up in the Olympics. Remember that wrestling was temporarily removed from the core Olympic sports because its viewership was dropping, and now skateboarding and surfing have been added to the core sports because they bring in viewership and sponsorships. if Hockey face the same Olympic exclusion challenge can it survive ? because governments will stop providing funds because it is not Olympics sports. All thanks to synthetic turf which made the game fast but removed the soul from it. Hating for cricket is Easy. We are not aware that we have an ice hockey team. Are they anywhere less than cricket or field hockey national teams ? All are same in terms of national representation then why !!!
Now the motive to share this list was during 80s and 90s there was increase of Broadcasting in subcontinent and cricket has just insane liberty to show ads no sports could match that just because of that reason subcontinent adopted the game because it brought money far more than any sports. Today things are such that Broadcaster in Subcontinent can manage such leagues like PSL IPL without subscription based model because they run tons of commercials in between to take out there Money. India Manage to get some sports leagues but almost all run in deficit. Sports is byproduct of good quality of life ( unless government directly get involved like china and make them complete isolate from rest of world to prepare as superhumans ), the more economically prosperous countries are the more they bring there own sports or format of the sports , why isn't kabaddi not in Olympics subcontinent plays it. it national game of Bangladesh, 25% world population plays it just because it doesn't economically viable ? who cares about 25% world population if breakdancing can bring more money !!!