«There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics»
Mark Twain

We often hear in conversation about the popularity of different kinds of sports. But we have no idea what the “sport popularity” is? What criteria are needed for such popularity?
The popularity of sports depends on many factors. National. So American football is extremely popular, but only in one country. Bandy in three or four Scandinavian countries. Rugby - collects full stadiums in the UK and its former colonies.
Geographical. All kinds of wrestling are popular in the Middle East. Sambo only in some post-Soviet countries. And about skiing and biathlon have not heard in Africa, for example.
Economic aspects. Boxing and Kyokushin karate are popular in the underdeveloped countries, where the life and health of the population is not worth anything and is not valuable from an economic point of view. Boxing may be popular in highly developed countries, but only as a show.
Trampoline and bobsleigh are popular in “advanced” northern countries. Curling and darts are kept by the owners of beer clubs.
Rhythmic gymnastics is popular only on Russian TV.

The most popular karate is WKF karate for sure. But only because other federations and styles of karate are poor of information. Web-sites of such federations, as a rule, are empty and lifeless. No information, no ideas! There is not much better in WKF karate. At the last moment, Antonio Espinos threw the WKF onto the deck of the Olympic Titanic, which was sailing to the bottom. Olympic karate WKF awaits the fate of Olympic amateur boxing. The only question is whether the WKF karate will sink before or reach the bottom at the same time as the IOC.
But Mr.Espinos (unlike those in alternative karate) has at least the idea of representation. With the help of which he misled the IOC. He has been collecting member countries for years and years, giving the right to represent WKF karate to anyone who wants. Therefore, fifty countries are represented in World Championships by only one or two athletes.
So, in the WKF World Championship 2018 there were 1117 participants from 140 countries. Only 16 countries had the maximum permitted squad (from 15 to 16 participants). This means that only in a dozen countries around the world national championships are held and only there the best athletes are selected. In the remaining 124 countries, athletes are recruited. 38 countries brought from 1 to 3 athletes for the Championship!
Is WKF karate popular in China (12 athletes participating in the World Championship for 1.3 billion people), Pakistan (5 athletes for 213 million), Nigeria (3 for 199 million), Bangladesh (3 for 167 million), Vietnam (3 to 93 million), South Africa (9 to 54 million), Yemen (1 to 49 million), Iraq (2 to 39 million), North Korea (2 to 28 million), Zimbabwe (1 to 25 million .), Ecuador (3 to 16 million), Cuba (3 to 11.5 million), Greece (5 to 10.8 million), United Arab Emirates (5 to 9.5 million), Israel (7 to 8 , 8 million), Georgia (5 to 3.7 million), Uruguay (4 athletes to 3.5 million population.) ???
It will be objected that in other karate federations the situation is even worse. I agree.
But this article is firstly about the fact that WKF direction of karate is popular only in some countries of the world. And secondly, everything is not so sad for you, heads of other karate federations, as WKF statistics say.
Tickets for the soccer World Cup are not available. And world rugby, in which only a dozen countries play at a high level, completely fills the stands of stadiums. Football, rugby and tennis players are the richest people on the planet.
And the stands at the WKF karate competitions are always empty. The karate people are poor like church mice.
Here you have all the popularity!
Time to work, gentlemen!