Africa-Press – Malawi. Africa is known for many different things, be it a rich culture, beautiful nature, diverse people, and also for their love of sports. Despite not being the frontrunners in many different sports, African people are known to be one of the best athletes in the world and they have achieved huge feats in many different sports. Because of this, Africans have a love of many different sports and looking across the continent we will see that different countries have different favorite sports.
Among this huge diversity of sports, one sport started to pick up the spotlight, that up until now, was not popular among Africans. Volleyball has gained popularity for the past few years, and it is thanks to the achievements made by some African volleyball players and teams. But how popular is Volleyball in Africa exactly, and is there room for growth?
Volleyball in Africa
Volleyball in Africa is governed by African Volleyball Confederation, CAVB for short. Established in 1972, this is the organization that has been organizing big volleyball tournaments in Africa and also CAVB is the one supporting African volleyball teams to compete internationally. With the rising popularity of this sport, many people have started to ask, if Volleyball is the second most popular sport in Africa? Answer to this question is no, and it is still very far away from this title. Africa is known for their love of football, rugby, athletics, and cricket, while volleyball is still something that many african countries are not interested in.
When it comes to African countries where volleyball is popular, Tunisia and Egypt are two countries that have love of this sport. The main reason for their love of volleyball is the success of their national volleyball teams, as they are ranked 19th and 20th best teams in the world. Currently Africa is recovering from the damages dealt by colonial regime and slavery and Africans are clinching on everything that will give them hope of a better future. And what can give better hope than seeing the success of your national team in any sports. Sports, including volleyball, can give people national pride and supporting your country is not just about winning, but the representation of your nation and people on the world stage.
Popularization of volleyball in Africa is also thanks to the digitalization that is currently happening in the world. In the past, watching sporting events was not easy due to challenges associated with broadcasting these games internationally. Because of this, most of the resources have been going to the broadcasting of popular sports such as football, basketball, and rugby. But as the world is becoming more digitized and African nations become more developed, more and more sports are becoming available to watch from the comfort of their homes. We even reached a point where people can bet on volleyball games with cryptocurrencies and watch these games on practically any platform they like.
But the road to the popularization of volleyball in Africa is still a long one. When looking at the most popular sports across different countries, there are usually two categories. One is when a country’s favorite sport is football, basketball, and similar sports that are popular everywhere. The second types of favorite sports are sports in which this country is best or at least very good. So when looking at this, we can see why volleyball is not a hugely popular sport in Africa, yet at least. Currently two African countries are inside the top 20 in volleyball rankings and last two spots at that. Because of this, there is not a huge support from African people towards their volleyball team, and while when they compete these people watch and cheere, but these volleyball teams and players are rarely discussed as football or rugby teams. But despite this, we can see that volleyball is developing in many African countries and more and more people have started to see interest in this sport.
But despite this increasing interest, there are still some limitations that might make volleyball popularization challenging. When it comes to genetics in Africa, Africans tend to be more athletic than people from other parts of the world, but when it comes to height, Africans, on average tend to be shorter than people from other parts of the world. This is a problem because height is a very important aspect in volleyball and not including 1-2 positions, most volleyball players need to be high. Those Africans that have a good height and want to pursue a sports career tend to choose basketball over volleyball since there are better opportunities, while volleyball might not pay as good, since there is way less interest in it. So what is left to do is sit back and watch where African volleyball will go and if it will reach a point when it will stand next to sports such as football, rugby, cricket, and so on.
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