Nah,i've seen them. Someone at my kids school sports a ManU sticker on their car. It's usually parked in a lot with about 10 cars with yankee stickers. ManU or anything else is not nearly as known or celebrated as yankees baseball. Yankees baseball is the face of sports in general and has been for nearly a century. To compare them with a soccer team that most Americans couldn't name 1 player on doesn't work. Everyone knows who Derek jeter,Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth are.
Spoken like a true New Yorker. Right now David Beckham is the most popular athlete in the world and that was established during his years with Man U. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest you know who he is and that you've probably never seen him play. Soccer is the worlds most popular sport by faaaaar, it's know all over the world and Manchester U. is probably the worlds most popular team... few know anything about baseball outside of the Americas and far east. People may know Babe Ruth, but nobody in Europe, Asia, or Africa knows who Mickey Mantle is nor do they care. Meanwhile Pele is the biggest athlete in world history.
Yeah,him i've heard of. Pele used to live in my town and come to my school teams practices as he lived just behind the school. Great guy. I've never watched a soccer game. Europe,i have no idea. I guess i just know this country and no team is or ever was as popular as the Yankees.
I do disagree about Pele being the worlds biggest athelete. From where I sit,that title belongs to Babe Ruth. Nobody in this country gives a rats ass what they think in Africa or Europe
That is the typical American response... if it's not American why should I care. Babe Ruth probably isn't even the most recognized American Athlete of all-time. I would think Michael Jordan is more well known than Babe Ruth. Basketball spread throughout Europe, Asia, Africa , South America, and Australia because of guys like Jordan, funny they didn't play too much baseball in Japan until after WWII and US servicemen brought the game to Japan. If you ask most Japanese who the greatest baseball player of all-time is they will tell you Sadahara Oh. Oh actually has more HR's than Hank Aaron he is a god over there. You can argue all you want about baseball being a world game but truth of the matter is nobody in Spain gives a shit about Derrick Jeter or the Yankees.
If you want to talk about the "worlds biggest/greatest athlete" you might want to consider the rest of the world. :lol: I do have to say though... I do appreciate your honest Type O
Michael Jordan is the biggest athlete in the World, not pele and not Beckham and once again we don't care about soccer in theis Country(obviously some people do when I say "we" I mean the overwhelming majority) so who cares who's popular in Brazil, Spain or England?
junc is just being stubborn here. if he would just admit that and amend his statements to "this country" instead of "the world" there wouldn't be any problems but of course he has to argue about nothing. GYC
Michael Jordan is mobbed wherever he goes, Pele and beckham are barely recognized in this Country. In an interview I read w/ Beckham he said he wanted to play here b/c he could be just a regular guy and nobody recognizes him. Michael Jordan is recognized everywhere even though basketball is not as big as soccer around the World.
Come on junc. Beckham is barely recognized in his own country? Jordan is bigger but he's not playing anymore so he doesn't really belong in the discussion as the "biggest athlete in the world".
I meant this Country not their Country. Jordan is still huge and there hasn't been an athlete pass him yet.
There's about 200 million people in this country and 7 billion in the world, I don't think the US is the end all and be all of gauging popularity around the world. Not to mention that I'm sure most people in the US know who Beckham is, if not for his soccer play, because he's always in the tabloids with his wife.
Most people in this Country know him as Mr. Posh Spice. I am not debating the popularity of soccer around the Wolrd it's obviously clearly #1 but I think Jordan is more popular around the World.
No, why? You don't think Tiger has more recognition than Michael? Jordan never had half the international recognition Tiger has.
I'll consider Tiger Woods as golf is global. Tiger plays in Thailand and Dubai every year people there certainly know who he is. I did mention in another post that Jordan took the NBA and basketball to a global audience. Think about it for a minute, there are players in the NBA from Haiti, Argentina, Brazil, The Sudan, France, Belguim, Germany, Croatia, Serbia, South Korea, China, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Spain, Litunainia, Russia, Australia, Canada, and a host of other European and African nations. This is not by accident, I truly feel this is because of Michael Jordan. I'll disagree with junc that Jordan is the most widely recognized athlete on the planet. I would think Yao Ming certainly could be debated but I still think Beckham has everybody beat. Don't let Becks fool you, his reason for wanting to play here is he thinks he can make Americans like soccer. Not because he can live in peace. There are plenty of European and English transplants living here that he would still get mobbed. It's no coincidence that every game he played in the US this past summer had over-priced tickets and were completely sold out.... funny for a nation that doesn't lie soccer.
