Volleyball remain one of the top 5 most popular sport in the world, more popular than handball and rugby and trailing basketball and tennis a game that was invented by American Williams G. Morgan who lived between 1870-1940 and named it Mintonette. His invention was stem to provide an alternative sport for older people of the basketball team that couldn’t stand the physicality and violet nature of the fast growing basketball then in the US. The older players he observed could not stand the young vibrant players in play which he was naturally unfair.
The FIVB World Ranking which was revamped in 2006 after the World league tournament rank teams based on points from their recent result, performance and significant competition (continental and international). Record from their October 2018 placed Brazil top of the men’s category followed by USA and Poland in 2nd and 3rd place respectively while China tops the women’s category followed closely by USA and Serbia in 2nd and third positions.
Brazil is not only most ranked team in the world but also the most successful team in volleyball winning all three major competitions;
Volleyball World Championship
Volleyball World Cup
Olympic Volleyball Tournament.
Aside football, volleyball remains Brazil’s most popular sport with the male and female leagues called Superliga Masculin de volei and Superliga feminine de volei respectively. Their counterpart in United State female league has struggle over the years unlike the men’s league which is doing just fine. Amazingly, volleyball is not rank in the top ten most popular sports in the United States. American football, Baseball, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, wrestling, motor sport and badminton all top the first 10 in that order. So, where is volleyball?
Volleyball remains more popular in Asia and South America as many America college graduates who are talented in volleyball seek for greener pasture in the game outside the United States. Most of the professionals either go to Brazil or Europe to play. Most US female citizens are into volleyball than their male counterpart. Some have attributed this to the nature of the game that requires less of physical contacts and secondly, the women are given scholarship in volleyball while their male goes for basketball or football.
From the originality of it, one would have expected USA to be in the fore front of propagating their own invention more than any other country of the world but that is not the case. As more and more country continue to enter into volleyball; water volleyball, beach volleyball etc it is important that the USA strive to take a front seat in the game of volleyball like other popular sports in the country.
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