The Year’s Best - France top Ball Team Sports nation in 2018
Ball Team sports is GSN’s largest sport group, being made up of 17 different team sports: Football, Futsal, Beach Soccer, Basketball, Volleyball, Beach Volleyball,
Handball, Hockey, Korfball, Lacrosse, Netball, Cricket, Baseball, Softball, Rugby Union, Rugby League and, from January 2019, Fistball.
Though not all of these sports staged a major, GSN-tracked tournament in 2018, the sport group as a whole was worth 19.1% of all GSN points awarded in the year, with Football taking the lion’s share through the FIFA men’s World Cup in Russia.
Winning the latter gave France a big boost towards taking the sport group title, though Les Bleus scored vital points in other sports too, winning the women’s 6 Nations Rugby Union tournament and finishing second in the men’s Volleyball World Championships.
The sport group runner-up, the USA, didn’t feature in the Football World Cup, but won no less than four other sports, as can be seen from the list below, while Belgium took a remarkable third place, after finishing third in the men’s Football World Cup, fourth in the women’s Basketball World Championships and winning the men’s Hockey World Cup.
Ball Team sports winners in 2018
Basketball: USA
Cricket: Australia
Football: France
Hockey: Netherlands
Lacrosse: USA
Rugby Union: New Zealand
Softball: USA
Volleyball: USA
The full ranking for the year is below:
|
2018
|
BALL TEAM SPORTS
|
||
|
Place
|
Country
|
Points
|
Points %
|
|
1
|
France
|
1,218
|
12.0%
|
|
2
|
United States
|
1,128
|
11.1%
|
|
3
|
Belgium
|
795
|
7.8%
|
|
4
|
Great Britain
|
650
|
6.4%
|
|
5
|
Brazil
|
642
|
6.3%
|
|
6
|
Croatia
|
640
|
6.3%
|
|
7
|
Australia
|
614
|
6.1%
|
|
8
|
Russia
|
562
|
5.5%
|
|
9
|
Serbia
|
474
|
4.7%
|
|
10
|
Netherlands
|
458
|
4.5%
|
|
11
|
China
|
345
|
3.4%
|
|
12
|
Italy
|
339
|
3.3%
|
|
13
|
Poland
|
324
|
3.2%
|
|
14
|
Spain
|
294
|
2.9%
|
|
15
|
Canada
|
282
|
2.8%
|
|
16
|
Sweden
|
200
|
2.0%
|
|
17
|
Uruguay
|
200
|
2.0%
|
|
18
|
Japan
|
166
|
1.6%
|
|
19
|
Turkey
|
160
|
1.6%
|
|
20
|
Ireland
|
138
|
1.4%
|
|
21
|
Germany
|
112
|
1.1%
|
|
22
|
India
|
89
|
0.9%
|
|
23
|
Argentina
|
64
|
0.6%
|
|
24
|
Puerto Rico
|
40
|
0.4%
|
|
25
|
New Zealand
|
37
|
0.4%
|
|
26
|
Nigeria
|
35
|
0.3%
|
|
27
|
South Africa
|
34
|
0.3%
|
|
28
|
West Indies
|
33
|
0.3%
|
|
29
|
Israel
|
32
|
0.3%
|
|
30
|
Mexico
|
18
|
0.2%
|
|
31
|
Pakistan
|
9
|
0.1%
|
|
32
|
Sri Lanka
|
9
|
0.1%
|
|
|
Grand Total
|
10,139
|
100.0%
|
Please note that at the time of publication, the results of the Hockey World Championships were not yet included in the website’s tables.
