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In a recent trip out of the country, one thing that stood out was the vast difference in the sports that were featured on television.
Cricket, cycling, soccer, tennis, auto racing, and even pickleball seemed to be more heavily covered than baseball, basketball, football, and/or hockey, America's most popular sports.
With that said, I have to wonder what non-Americans think of our sports landscape?
The Super Bowl and the World Series may be the biggest sporting spectacles in the United States each and every year, but outside of our own borders, these events might be more of an entertaining curiosity than carefully followed sporting events that are must-watch television.
While trying to better understand the sports that take priority elsewhere, it was interesting to see the dramatic passion that fans and players had when it came to cricket, a sport I know very little about.
The enthusiasm on the pitch was palpable, and, as a result, cricket matches seemed to be more heavily covered on the television I watched than any other sport.
As I tried to make sense of the rules and what was unfolding during the competition,
I thought about how cricket was once a sport that was welcomed in Altoona about 150 years ago, but as baseball gained popularity, cricket was phased out.
A similar sort of phaseout occurred in Cincinnati where the first ever fully professional baseball team emerged in 1869.
At the time, the cricket grounds did double duty for Cincinnati's cricket and baseball teams, but within a decade or so, baseball took over as our national pastime, and cricket as a sports activity was on its way out.
Despite that, we still have remnants of cricket's influence in Altoona.
A retailing area adjacent to UPMC Altoona is still called Cricket Field Plaza, so if you decide to swing by Wendy's or stop by Rite Aid when in that neighborhood, you will be in an area that briefly served as a hotbed for a sport that is no longer popular locally.
Still, that is the same area where baseball was popular decades later, eventually setting the stage for the Altoona Curve, nearby college teams, local Teener leagues and numerous local Little Leagues.
As I pondered the differences between sports in our country and the popular sports choices elsewhere, I couldn't help but think that the sports landscape may seem fixed in what is popular and what is not, but, upon deeper analysis, it is always changing, sometimes in subtle ways and, at other times, with major seismic shifts.
Many years ago, you might be regarded as irrational if you argued that video gaming was a "sport."
Now many colleges and even high schools have gaming teams that compete against other schools and top professional gamers now compete in championships that take place in filled-to-capacity major arenas that host traditional sports.
I hope that America's most popular sports maintain their popularity here and perhaps expand their presence elsewhere.
Yet, as I watched a variety of unfamiliar sports while outside of the United States, I concluded that with numerous communication channels available globally, change in the sports landscape might be more likely now than in any previous generation.
Bob Trumpbour is an assistant professor of communications at Penn State Altoona. He authored the book, "The New Cathedrals, politics and media in the history of stadium construction." He has also worked on a freelance basis with CBS, NBC and Westwood One for more than 30 years.