The most watched sports include: (this figure is According to the number of fans on Quora as well as the number of YouTube subscribers of the channel for sports)

The two sports that are the most popular around the globe include football and badminton.

Cricket is one of the most played sports is the most popular sport in South Asia. Baseball is extremely popular across Japan, USA and elsewhere. Hockey isn't as well-known as it was in the past. Table tennis is very popular in China but not in other European nations.

According to YouTube subscribers. The most popular sports are

1.Association Football

*FifaTV (8 millions) Uefa (1.5 million) and many more channels that exceed one million.

2.Basketball

*FibaTV ( 560 K) NBA (10 million) and many more.

3.Cricket

* ICC (1.5 million) Cricket Australia (2.3 million)

4.Tennis

*Australian Open TV (270 K) and ATP Tour (272 K) and many more with 0.1 million viewers.

4. Badminton

*BWF (800 K) Shuttle Flash (270 K)

5.Baseball

* MLB (1.5 million) and a variety of other channels that have a thousand subscribers only. (Restricted to USA viewers and Japan)

6. World Rugby

*World Rugby (480 K)

7.Volleyball

*FIVB Vollyball (390 K)

7.Golf

*Pga Tour (390 K)

8. Table Tennis

*ITTF( 290 K)

There are also sports that are nearly equally well-known: Swimming, Athletics Gymnastics, Ice Hockey (NHL-1 million) and Hockey (197 K IHF)

Ice Hockey is not included since it's an winter sports. Table Tennis is popular only within China, Aquatics are only played in the Olympics.

The sport of rugby is in its early stages of development. The sport isn't as popular as it used to be forty years ago. 

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Golf is a sport that is professional. Golf is associated with high earning class of the society, thus it lacks participation.Athletics is only famous as an Oympics sport and with few great names.

I don't see Motor Racing as a full fully fledged activity.

Most Popular Sports in various surveys:

  1. Football (Over 1.5 billion)
  2. Badminton( 450-800 million)
  3. Volleyball (300 milliom), however, some statistics suggest that more than 700 million people participate in the game.
  4. Basketball (400 million-800 million)
  5. Cricket (100 million - 500 million)
  6. Tennis (100 million - 300 million)
  7. Table Tennis (200-250 million)
  8. Baseball (50-100 million)
  9. Hockey (Field and Ice) 50 million
  10. Golf (50 million)

The most watched sports:

  1. Football
  2. Cricket
  3. Basketball
  4. Tennis
  5. Volleyball and Baseball
  6. Badminton
  7. Rugby
  8. Table Tennis
  9. Athletics
  10. Golf

After all my calculations, I have concluded that the most Popular Sports in the world are:

1.Football (without the shadow of a doubt) (Asia as well as Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa) (over 4 billion fans)

2.Cricket (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Australia as well as other) (2.2 billion or more fans)

3. Basketball (China, USA, Spain,Serbia, India, Canada) (1.5 billion fans)

4. It's an unofficial match: Badminton as well as Tennis (1.3 billion or more fans)

Tennis: European Nations (Germany,France,Spain,Switzerland,UK) and USA.

Badminton:(China, India, Indonesia, Malayasia, Denmark, Korea, Japan and also is a favorite game in the UK as well as France) (you certainly can't be beaten by India, China and Indonesia the three countries with the highest population in the world.)

5. Table Tennis (600 million) (China alone is sufficient)

6.Baseball (400 million)

7. Volleyball as well as Hockey 400 millions)

8.Rugby (200 million)

9. Golf (150 million) (The Sport of millionaires)

Athletics and Swimming are only noticed during Olympics They can't be assessed on the basis of this. Bolt as well as Phelps are well-known, but do we have other athletes? So both occupy 10th positions.

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