A couple of years ago I spent a couple of days in the bustling, vibrant, neon-and-concrete city of Beijing. Naturally, I took the opportunity to visit some of the tourist must-sees.

The Forbidden City is a place of rare spectacle. The eye is constantly drawn across open squares overlooked by stern stone statuary to ornate yet stately palaces and temples. Everywhere you look, yellow glazed roof tiles shimmer on top of wooden buildings that have stood there for nearly 600 years. So you can imagine my surprise when on turning a corner in this most ancient and beautiful of settings I found myself looking at a Starbucks.

As appalled as I was, I'm afraid to say that I only encouraged Mr and Mrs Starbuck in their quest to caffeinate the entire globe by buying myself a coffee. Not because I wanted one, you understand, but because a receipt for a caramel macchiato with the words Forbidden City Starbucks printed on it seemed like a better souvenir than a fridge magnet.

To many people, this will be seen as yet another piece of evidence for the way in which American culture is marching unfettered across the globe. Of course, it is true that high streets the world over are dotted with American fastfood outlets and that radios everywhere are broadcasting American pop. TV? Check. Movies? Of course. But while it's easy to moan about the Americanisation of the world, I'm not convinced that it's really fair and I have a two-pronged argument with which to make my case:

Prong 1: If American culture has really taken over the world, the word describing that phenomena would actually be spelt Americanization, wouldn't it?

Prong 2: If American culture really is dominating the world, why is football (the kind played with your feet and a round ball) still the world's most popular sport?

I'll expand a little on prong 2, because while I've been touring the States for the last few months, I've done my best to appreciate their major sports, with the exception of ice hockey because that's just silly.

One of the objections raised by Americans when discussing football, sorry, soccer, is that not enough goals are scored. But to my mind the reverse is true in basketball; too many baskets are scored. I watched a game on TV a few days ago and it ended 109-105. Which means that a basket is scored almost twice a minute! Surely the law of diminishing returns has to kick in before the game is up. If the defence is powerless to stop the opposition scoring the game is imbalanced and it loses some of its appeal.

I reckon that when a YMCA minister invented the game in the late 19th century he did so thinking that it would be difficult for people to throw the ball through the basket that he'd nailed high up on the wall. I'm pretty sure that if the boys who first played the game had been 7ft-tall genetic freaks capable of slam dunking the thing, he probably would have got a ladder and placed the basket higher.

I confess that, try as I might, I have so far failed to watch a whole game of American football. From what I've seen, I suspect it would be a fascinating sport to watch if 11 players from each team went on to the pitch and didn't leave until it was over. Or half time at least. Instead, American football seems to happen in two-minute bursts of energy punctuated by three-minute commercial breaks.

Instead of making substitutions whole teams are swapped over so that when the team is attacking, their offence takes to the field and when they're defending, the defence takes over. This ensures that everyone is excellent at their job and in doing so it robs from the game the very thing that makes sport interesting: frailty.

Baseball is the one American sport that I can watch and enjoy. I've followed it vaguely on TV for the last few years and on this trip I've been to watch three live games. In San Francisco I saw the Giants beaten by the Chicago Cubs. In Cleveland I saw the Indians beaten by the Oakland Athletics and in Chicago I saw the Cubs beaten by the Pittsburgh Pirates. (I'm clearly a jinx for the home side, so if you're a fan of major league baseball you might want to consider paying me to not visit your club.)

I've loved every minute of watching baseball; it's a sensible game with a sensible number of players playing at a sensible pace. Players hit as well as field. It's hard - but not impossible - to score and when a home run is hit you know you've witnessed something special.

Baseball is the one major American sport that seems to me to possess the potential for global appeal and yet, somehow, it doesn't have it. Not that many Americans will believe me. I'm not the first outsider to wonder at the perversity of calling the winners of the American domestic competition (all right, and one Canadian team) the World Champions.

Some people would say they don't really mean it that way, that it's called the World Series for historical reasons lost in the mists of time. But they're wrong. Tonight I've decided to give basketball a go. I'm going to a live game: Chicago Bulls v San Antonio Spurs. My ticket is sitting on the desk in front of me. Printed on the ticket are the words: Chicago Bulls: World Champions 91/92/93/96/97/98. So even when the competition isn't the World Series the winners of the American league declare themselves the world champions!

I suppose if your sports aren't able to take over the world you can at least pretend.

· Dave Gorman (davegorman.com) is on tour in the US. He stars in Genius, Thursdays on BBC Radio 4 at 6.30pm.