Impactful Sports from Around the Globe

In Ireland, hurling and Gaelic football are king. But rural regions have been suffering from falling population numbers. As young people headed to Australia and Canada in search of better-paying jobs following the 2008 economic crisis, the number of people playing these sports was declining by more than 200 registered players per month. In recent years, though, a new cohort of immigrants and refugees has not only helped keep these team sports alive but has also taken center stage at the national level.

The rodeo is the sole preserve of the white, male rancher, right? Not so fast, cowboy. Increasingly, young Native American bull and bronc riders are making it to the big time. In 2018, Keyshawn Whitehorse, a member of the Navajo Nation, won the elite Professional Bull Riders “Rookie of the Year” title, beating out rivals from the U.S. and four other countries. Whitehorse is currently in the top 30 of the PBR rider standings, along with Cody Jesus (also Navajo).

New Zealanders take their rugby very seriously. So why have many of their most decorated players left for Japan, which is hardly a rugby powerhouse? From ex-national team captain Kieran Read to world record points scorer Dan Carter, New Zealand’s top talent has found its way north, especially as they’ve neared retirement. What’s the attraction? Unsurprisingly, it’s cold, hard cash. A number of Japanese rugby clubs are financially backed by major corporations and are thus able to pay higher salaries for prominent rugby names.

America’s game has for decades relied on imported talent to field the best teams. Nearly 30% of Major League Baseball players are born overseas. And at the small-town level, the foreign presence is even more significant. Of the eight teams in a 2019 minor league baseball grouping based in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio, immigrants made up 34% of the playing roster. It’s a telling figure when you consider those states have an average immigrant population of just 5%. Baseball plays a major role in building bridges between overwhelmingly white rural communities and people from other cultures.

If anything says 1990s in Argentina, it’s padel. A tennis-squash hybrid, this sport is played on small, enclosed courts with wooden paddles and a slightly deflated tennis ball, which can ricochet off the side and back walls, rebounding back into play and giving each match some crazy levels of adrenaline. Having expanded beyond Argentina, this sport is now one of the world’s fastest-growing.

The Japanese have Sumo, and the Senegalese have Laamb — a centuries-old form of wrestling that is more popular in the West African nation than also-loved soccer. Laamb has its roots in harvest festivals, when villages competed as a way to honor leaders and show off to potential brides. Today, the sport packs arenas with highly energetic crowds.

Cricket has become a national pastime in many nations. It has the second-highest number of global fans among all sports, trailing only soccer. Cricket is also a top sport in 11 nations — Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe — and in the Caribbean, where multiple island nations play together under the banner of the West Indies. Cricket bears similarities to baseball, and even though it appeared in North America as early as the 17th century, the sport remains unknown to many Americans.

on The Carlos Watson Show!

Not all team sports end with handshakes. Considered by some as the world's first team sport, pok-ta-pok originated in Mesoamerica between 2000 and 1500 B.C. The “games” were orchestrated battles between captured prisoners, pitting two teams of a few players against one another with the goal of getting a small rubber ball through a 20-foot-high stone hoop. The competition was extremely violent and fast, and the stakes were high: The losing side was beheaded as a sacrifice to the gods.

Whether you followed the drivers, cared about the sport or even knew what NASCAR was, odds are you looked up the name Bubba Wallace when NASCAR announced it would ban the Confederate flag at its events. After all, this young Black driver was the catalyst for such change. In an episode of “The Carlos Watson Show,” the NASCAR Cup Series driver talks about his experience as the circuit’s lone full-time Black athlete and shares the horrifying story of how he nearly killed his dad on the racetrack.

The fast-growing martial art of OZYMA (an acronym for “Oshi Zen Yoga Martial Art”) is based on the teachings of the controversial religious leader Osho, an Indian guru featured in the Netflix documentary “Wild Wild Country.” Umesh Rohit broke away from the taekwondo scene to start OZYMA, which combines the tenets of meditation with the physical prowess of warrior training.

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