alt Hacker NewsThe thing is that the US team sports you can think of such Baseball or American Football, have nearly no popularity outside of the US. Maybe Baseball in places like Japan or Venezuela.
Maybe the only parallel to soccer I can think of is sports like Rugby in UK and some English-speaking countries, Cricket in India, and some sports endemic to countries (such as GAA in Ireland).
The best way to compare the US to other countries in a sport that is similar in terms of interest among other countries is something like Volleyball. Which the US tends to be very good at, with many major competitors. I can't think of anywhere that volleyball is a #1 sport that sees a lot of unstructured play.
All this was obviously about team sports.
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Baseball appeal in a country is always a history lesson. You can measure how a country was fucked up by USA based in their love of baseball: - Cuba - Japan - Panama - Venezuela
No other country can like a sport this boring.
Basketball?
I can’t speak to its actual popularity, but when I visit Europe and local folks hear I’m from the US, I’m surprised how often they are interested in talking about the NBA. Maybe it’s more pronounced in Eastern Europe where a lot of basketball talent has made it to the NBA over the years.
Baseball obviously has high popularity in a substantial number of non-US countries, though the main ones that feed the MLB (the DR, Venezuela, and Cuba) aren't often top-of-mind countries for many. The Japan/Korea interest is obviously non-trivial too.
Basketball is the obvious one you're leaving out that's about the same age as Volleyball (itself a US team sport), and probably has the most international popularity -- especially if just going by people-counting since China alone is an enormous market.
Funny thing, though: US players make up about 73% of the MLB but about 78% of the NBA, despite the NBA having more international popularity, and the current best players in both being from non-US countries.