The next problems is how do we measure such a thing. In what situation can we say a sport has a high popularity and what quantity is many areas? I hate these problems but if we truly wanted to solve the problem we would create an exact definition e.g. A sport with over 30% watching and playing participation of the population in over twenty countries - where at least three have to be from each (proper) continent.
Everyone would always try to match figures and the definition to suit their purpose, the soccer/football fanatics would want higher criteria because it is the most popular sport and then it would be considered the only global sport etc. etc.
The conclusion of my post, unless we can take a proper definition from another reliable source we can't come to a "scientific" conclusion