Amazing Maps of the Sports World

Do you agree with this map of the best football player from each country? JurijFedorov / Reddit
Maps can teach us about where we’re going and show us where we’ve been. Sports maps also can do those things. They can show us trends or help us see the history of the games and teams we love. They can teach us interesting facts, too.
Thanks to social media, the internet and an abundance of data, these kinds of maps have never been more accessible. On top of that, they are a great way to look at sports and stir up debate.
Here are the most incredible maps of the sports world.
World’s Most Popular Sports

People love sports, but every country has different tastes.
Soccer is by far the world’s most popular sport, though the United States prefers its own football.
The Caribbean and Japan love baseball, while unsurprisingly ice hockey rules Canada and Finland.
Global Sports Trends by Country

Want to know global sports trends?
This map and graph are fascinating because it shows how sports have trended both in the United States and across the planet, based on Google searches from 2004 to 2018.
You can see how interest in soccer spikes especially during World Cup years and how American football has taken off across the world.
North American Sports Teams

Here it is, folks, the full professional sports map of North America (as of June 2018).
It has team names and locations for each club in baseball (MLB), basketball (NBA), football (NFL), hockey (NHL) and soccer (MLS) across the United States and Canada.
Today, there are 30 teams in MLB, 30 in the NBA 32 in the NFL, 31 in the NHL and 26 in MLS. That’s 149 teams playing professional sports in North America.
Each U.S. County’s Closest Sports Team

There are more than 120 teams in the NBA, NHL, MLB and NFL, and here is the closest one to you based on the United States county in which you live.
The New York Giants are not denoted on here but could just as easily supplant the Jets — they play at the same facility, MetLife Stadium — and the Los Angeles Lakers are also supplanted by the Dodgers despite being the most popular NBA team (see below).