alt Hacker NewsMost popular sports have world cups every four years. Basketball, cricket, rugby, volleyball, field hockey WCs are all held every four years. Some others like handball are held every two years.
Cricket gets the same level of crazy support in South Asia as football does in most of the world. But the reason football gets such support in most of the world is simply because most people consider it the best sport, or the "beautiful game". It is one of the most well designed sports, having the fewest number of unnatural rules - only one in fact (offside). It can also be played with basically any number of players from 2-20 in fields of any size, so it's really popular for normal people. The skills floor is reasonably low, but the skill ceiling is very very high.
So, then it flows naturally into social actions like blocking streets.
And to play you need literally need just a ball. This makes the sport universally accessible (maybe second to dance and martial arts). As a kid we used to play in the middle of the street, with shoes or school bags to mark the goal. In thaat context, owning a soccer ball made you some kind of royalty. (that was Brazil in the 90s btw)
But I think that kids nowadays are less interested in sports generally. Or at least I don't see kids playing in the streets nearly as much.