Quote from: buwaytress on May 27, 2023, 08:23:35 AM

I don't need to believe it, haha. Spent 3 years collectively in India and Pakistan, not to mention Sri Lanka. Only foreigners played football there, but the reason I asked was because I'm reading more and more about how big Indian football actually is. India's about 1/7th of global population so even if only 10% of the people watch football, it's already more than 3x the population of my country Wink

Oh wow! Nice to know that you were in those countries. If you have spent three years there, you must be familiar with the culture and know how crazy people are about Cricket. Every South Asian country is cricket-loving, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Nepal. Indeed there are some football fans as well. You can see the football craziness during the world cup.
Look at those clips from Fifa and Al Jazeera;
https://twitter.com/FIFAcom/status/1596759102755115009?s=20
https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1601958735987048455?s=20

But I would still say this is seasonal. You won't see this craziness for a whole year. But when it comes to Cricket, South Asians are crazy.

Quote from: buwaytress on May 27, 2023, 08:23:35 AM

Cricket is king, for sure but a friend of mine insists Kerala and Goa are football crazy (see this clip), Indians were the 7th rank in the last World Cup ticket sales apparently! This isn't even recent, Russia 2018 had the most fans from US, China... then India. And they don't even have a team at the tournament ha!

Yeah. This is impressive. A country doesn't have their team in the world cup, but they are cheering for another country; this must come from the heart. Without loving football, it's not possible. Just imagine your country is not in the tournament, but you are still cheering for a team. It's because you are a soccer fan, and that's why you are there.