Life – a user's manual Part II - Boksidan

Sailing WC-silver. gold + silver
WC-silver.
- - - - - - -
Swimming 5 silver + 2
gold i EC.
5 gold + 2
silver + 7
bronze i EC.
- 3 silver + 1
gold i EC.
- - - 3 silver
+ 1 gold
i EC.
- 10
Biathlon - - - - - - - - - 5
Skating - - - - - - - - -
shooting - - - - - - - - -
Downhill
skiing
WC-gold.
gold in the
world cup.
Tennis - Silver in
Wimbledon.
2 gold + 1
silver i
WC, gold
in the
world
cup.
- - - - Silver in
french
opend.
- - - - 4 (alpine)
Silver in
french
opend.
- 17
Volleyball - - - - - - - - -
2. The 20 most popular sports in 2009 according to Sponsor Insight (see the article in the Swedish version of this
book), 1 = the most popular sport.
Patriotism as a general factor does not surprise me, but regarding the interviewees it’s really a bit strange.
Since I know the majority of those interviewed well and does not notice much patriotism in general. A factor
that could be an explanation, or another proof of the same phenomenon, is that the media does not raise
Swedishness up other than in competitions. While in Sweden we still produce a lot of products like toilet
paper, white goods, cars, et cetera, the origin are not an argument in the Swedish marketing. With an
exception for food, but also regarding Swedish food we do not, to any great extent, require that it shall be
cooked in a "Swedish" way. Though in terms of competitions where Swedes participating media is very
much focused on our performances. It is written, such a huge amount more about Zlatan Ibrahimovic
movements than any of the foreign players on the same level. This is perhaps because there are few other
venues where countries meet in a reasonably fair way. Aside from the popular event Eurovision song
Contest, where Swedish success is met with national frenzy.
Nationalism does not explain everything. First, because two of our strongest sports, hockey and orientation,
does not seem to be particularly popular to watch, not according to this study or the study by Sponsor
insight. And partly because we seem to like figure skating and football despite the total lack of real
international Swedish success for a long time.
Regarding football it may be due to that the sport has proven to be the most exciting of, at least, the greatest
American ball games (E. Ben-Naim, F. Vazquez, S. Redner (2007) What is the Most Competitive Sport J.
Korean Phys. Soc. 50, 124). The researchers analyzed results from over 300 000 games in hockey, football,
baseball, basketball and football. Their results showed that the bang-rate (the weaker party's chance of
winning) was highest for football, followed by baseball, hockey, basketball and finally American football.
The reason is simple: there are usually far fewer "points" made per game in football compared to the other
sports studied, which means that a game to a greater extent can be determined by an misstake from either
team. Thus, the outcome of the match is more uncertain and hence the game more exciting.
In the largest sports magazine (Aftonbladet sports supplement) football also often dominate the collumns
(table 3). Not only Swedish club team and the National football team's actions are analyzed, also foreign
club matches are discussed.
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