Sports in the United States

Sports in the United States are an important part of the nation's culture. Historically, the national sport has been baseball. However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership audience. Basketball has grown into the mainstream American sports scene since the 1980s, with ice hockey and soccer doing the same around the turn of the 21st century. These sports comprise the "Big Five". In the first half of the 20th century, boxing and collegiate football were among the most popular sports after baseball. Golf, tennis, and collegiate basketball are other spectator sports with longstanding popularity. Most recently, Mixed martial arts, has been breaking records in attendance and broadcast viewership for all combat sports.
Based on revenue, the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada are the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Soccer (MLS). At $16 billion in revenue, the NFL is the most profitable sports league in the world.
The market for professional sports in the United States is about $69 billion, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined. All these leagues enjoy wide-ranging domestic media coverage and, except for Major League Soccer, all are considered the preeminent leagues in their respective sports in the world. Although American football does not have a substantial following in other nations, the NFL does have the highest average attendance (67,254) of any professional sports league in the world. MLS has the second highest average attendance of any sports league in the U.S. (21,789), followed by MLB with an average of 18,900. Of these five U.S.-based leagues, all but the NFL have at least one team in Canada.
Professional teams in all major sports in the United States operate as franchises within a league, meaning that a team may move to a different city if the team's owners believe there would be a financial benefit, but franchise moves are usually subject to some form of league-level approval. All major sports leagues use a similar type of regular-season schedule with a post-season playoff tournament. In addition to the major league–level organizations, several sports also have professional minor leagues, active in smaller cities across the country. As in Canada and Australia, sports leagues in the United States do not practice promotion and relegation, unlike most sports leagues in Europe.
Sports are particularly associated with education in the United States, with most high schools and universities having organized sports, and this is a unique sporting footprint for the U.S. College sports competitions play an important role in the American sporting culture, and college basketball and college football are nearly as popular as professional sports in some parts of the country. The major sanctioning body for college sports is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Colleges collectively receive billions of dollars from TV deals, sponsorships, and ticket sales. In 2019, the total revenue generated by NCAA athletic departments added up to $18.9 billion.
Based on Olympic Games, World Championships, and other major competitions in respective sports, the United States is the most successful nation in the world in baseball, basketball, athletics, swimming, lacrosse, beach volleyball, figure skating, tennis, golf, boxing, diving, shooting, rowing and snowboarding, and is all time one of the top five most successful nations in ice hockey, wrestling, gymnastics, volleyball, speed skating, alpine skiing, bobsleigh, equestrian, sailing, cycling, weightlifting and archery, among others. This makes the United States the most successful sports nation in the world. The United States has been referred to by some as the Hegemon of World Sports. The United States has placed first in the Summer Olympic medal table 18 times out of 29 Summer Olympics and 28 appearances. Unlike most other nations, the United States government does not provide funding for sports nor for the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.
History
American football, indoor American football, baseball, softball, and indoor soccer evolved out of older British (Rugby football, British baseball, Rounders, and association football) sports. However, basketball, volleyball, beach volleyball, racquetball, pickleball, skateboarding, snowboarding, Ultimate, wind-surfing, and Water Skiing are fully American inventions, some of which have become popular in other countries and worldwide.
Up until the Civil War, cricket was a somewhat popular sport in the United States, with presidents such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln having played or watched the game. However, cricket at the time was a sport played over several days, and during the Civil War, troops preferred to play the newly rising game of baseball, which was much shorter in duration and did not require a special playing surface to be played.
Olympics
American athletes have won a total of 2,673 medals (1,075 of them gold) at the Summer Olympic Games and another 305 (105 of them gold) at the Winter Olympic Games, making the United States the most prolific medal-winning nation in the history of the Olympics. The US is ranked first in the all-time medal table even if all the incarnations of Russia and Germany are combined, leading the second-placed Russians by 402 gold and 917 total medals. These achievements are even more impressive considering the fact that the American Olympic team remains the only in the world to receive no government funding.
The United States hosted both Summer and Winter Games in 1932, and has hosted more Games than any other country – eight times, four times each for the Summer and Winter Games:
The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, 1932 Summer Olympics and 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles; and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta;
The 1932 Winter Olympics and 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York; the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California; and the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympics for a third time in 2028, marking the ninth time the U.S. hosts the Olympic Games.
The United States has won the most gold and overall medals in the Summer Olympic Games, even if the medal totals of the Soviet Union/CIS and Russia are combined, and has topped the medal table 18 times. The country has won the second most gold and overall medals in the Winter Olympic Games, behind Norway, but has topped the medal table only one time, in 1932. If all of Germany's and Russia's incarnations are combined, the United States slips to fourth in the all-time Winter Olympic Games table.
Individual sports
Golf
Golf is one of the most popular participation sports in the United States, with approximately 24 million people playing golf on a regular basis as of 2023. Golf's origins can be traced back to 15th century Scotland, where players would hit a pebble around sandy dunes using a stick or primitive club. The game has evolved over centuries into the version played today, which involves hitting a small, dimpled ball into each hole on a course in as few strokes as possible.Introduced to America in the late 19th century, it quickly gained favor among the upper class. The United States Golf Association was founded in 1894 to establish rules. Iconic courses like Augusta National and Pebble Beach have hosted legendary tournaments.
Key U.S. golf events include The Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open, and Ryder Cup. Legends like Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have left a lasting mark, while new talents continue to shine.
Golf is now more accessible across demographics, offering a blend of relaxation and mental challenge. Advancements in equipment and training ensure its continued evolution.
Boxing
The United States became the center of professional boxing in the early 20th century. The National Boxing Association was founded in 1921 and began to sanction title fights. Joe Louis was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, and is widely considered to be the greatest heavyweight boxers of all-time. Louis is widely regarded as the first person of African-American descent to achieve the status of a nationwide hero within the United States, and was also a focal point of anti-Nazi sentiment leading up to and during World War II. Since the late 1990s, boxing has declined in popularity.
Popular team sports
Overview
The most popular team sports in the United States are American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, and soccer. All five of these team sports are popular with fans, are widely watched on television, have a fully professional league, are played by millions of Americans, enjoy varsity status at many Division I colleges, and are played in high schools throughout the country.
TV viewing record measures the game with the most TV viewers in the U.S. since 2005 for each sport: 2015 Super Bowl, 2016 NBA Finals Game 7, 2016 World Series Game 7, 2014 FIFA World Cup Final, and 2010 Winter Olympics Gold medal ice hockey game.
The column titled "States (HS)" represents the number of states that sponsor the sport at the high school level. For the purpose of this table, Washington, D.C. is counted as a state.
American football
Football has the most participants of any sport at both high school and college levels, the vast majority of its participants being male.
The NFL has the highest average attendance (67,591) of any professional sports league in the world and has the highest revenue out of any single professional sports league.
Millions watch college football throughout the fall months, and some communities, particularly in rural areas, place great emphasis on their local high school football teams. The popularity of college and high school football in areas such as the Southern United States (Southeastern Conference) and the Great Plains (Big 12 Conference and Big Ten Conference) stems largely from the fact that these areas historically generally did not possess markets large enough for a professional team. Nonetheless, college football has a rich history in the United States, predating the NFL by decades, and fans and alumni are generally very passionate about their teams.
Baseball
Baseball and a variant, softball, are popular participatory sports in the U.S. Baseball was the first professional sport in the United States. The highest level of baseball in the U.S. and the world is Major League Baseball. The World Series of Major League Baseball is the culmination of the sport's postseason each October. It is played between the winner of each of the two leagues, the American League and the National League, and the winner is determined through a best-of-seven playoff.
The New York Yankees are noted for having won more titles than any other US major professional sports franchise. The Yankees' chief rivals, the Boston Red Sox, also enjoy a huge following in Boston and throughout New England. The Philadelphia Phillies of the National League are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, and enjoy a fanbase renowned for their rabid support of their team throughout Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, and have famously been dubbed as the "Meanest Fans in America".
Every four years in March, the World Baseball Classic is held, which is the national team game, the most popular baseball national team game.
Basketball
Of those Americans citing their favorite sport, basketball is ranked second (counting amateur levels) behind football. However, in regards to revenue the NBA is ranked third in popularity. More Americans play basketball than any other team sport, according to the National Sporting Goods Association, with over 26 million Americans playing basketball.
Basketball was invented in 1891 by Canadian physical education teacher James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the world's premier professional basketball league and one of the major professional sports leagues of North America. It contains 30 teams (29 teams in the U.S. and 1 in Canada) that play an 82-game season from October to June. After the regular season, eight teams from each conference compete in the playoffs for the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy.
In high school basketball, Indiana has 10 of the 12 largest high school gyms in the United States, and is famous for its basketball passion, known as Hoosier Hysteria.
Professional basketball is most followed in cities where there are no other sports teams in the four major professional leagues, such as in the case of the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Sacramento Kings, the San Antonio Spurs, the Memphis Grizzlies, or the Portland Trail Blazers.
Soccer
With an average attendance of over 21,000 per game (prior to COVID-19), Major League Soccer has the third-highest average attendance of any sports league in the U.S. after the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB), and is the ninth-highest attended professional soccer league worldwide.
The NWSL is expected to expand to 14 teams in 2024 and 15 shortly thereafter.
The Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) is a North American professional indoor soccer league. MASL is the highest level of arena soccer in the North America and the world.
Ice hockey
The U.S. now has more youth hockey players than all other countries, excluding Canada, combined. USA Hockey is the official governing body for amateur hockey in the United States. The United States Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Eveleth, Minnesota.
Historically, the vast majority of NHL players had come from Canada, with a small number of Americans. As late as 1969–70, Canadian players made up 95 percent of the league.
Calendar of the major men's professional sports leagues in the USA
Other team sports
Overview
The following table shows additional sports that are played by over 500,000 people in the United States.
Attendance record measures highest single-game attendances. Attendance records are: Volleyball: 2023 Volleyball Day in Nebraska at Memorial Stadium, Lincoln; Rugby: 2014 New Zealand vs. Ireland in Chicago; and Lacrosse: 2007 NCAA Division I men's championship semifinals.
TV viewership records are: Volleyball: 2010 NCAA women's championship on ESPN2; Rugby: 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens on NBC; Lacrosse: 2016 NCAA championship on ESPN2
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport that is believed to have originated with the Iroquois and the Lenape. The sport is most popular in the East Coast area from Maryland to New York. While its roots remain east, lacrosse is currently the fastest growing sport in the nation. The National Lacrosse League is the professional Box lacrosse league, while the Premier Lacrosse League is the professional Field Lacrosse league. Major League Lacrosse was a semi-professional Field Lacrosse league that was operating nationally before merging into PLL in 2020.
Volleyball
Volleyball is played in the United States, especially at the college and university levels. Unlike most Olympic sports which are sponsored widely at the collegiate level for both sexes, the women's college volleyball teams are more common than men's college volleyball teams. In the 2011–12 school year, over 300 schools in NCAA Division I alone (the highest of three NCAA tiers) sponsored women's volleyball at the varsity level, while fewer than 100 schools in all three NCAA divisions combined sponsored varsity men's volleyball, with only 23 of them in Division I. Men's volleyball has grown at the non-scholarship NCAA Division III level in the 21st century, with a national championship established in 2012. As of the most recent 2022 season (2021–22 school year), 113 schools sponsor the sport at that level. At the same time, 26 D-I and 31 D-II members sponsored men's volleyball at the National Collegiate level, defined for the purposes of that sport as the combination of Divisions I and II.
Rugby
Rugby union participation in the U.S. has grown significantly in recent years, growing by 350% between 2004 and 2011. A 2010 survey by the National Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association ranked rugby union as the fastest-growing sport in the U.S.
Rugby union is the fastest growing college sport and sport in general in the United States.
Rugby league in the United States is governed by the USA Rugby League (USARL). The majority of teams are based on the East Coast. The league was founded in 2011 by clubs that had broken with the established American National Rugby League (AMNRL).
The United States national rugby league team played in their first World Cup in 2013 advancing to the quarter finals with wins over Wales and the Cook Islands.
The USA Tomahawks national team would go on to lose to champions Australia 62–0.
Minor sports
Australian rules football in the United States
Bandy in the United States
Cricket in the United States
Field hockey in the United States
Handball in the United States
Organization of American sports
College sports
The most practiced college sports, measured by NCAA reporting on varsity team participation, are: (1) football (64,000), (2) baseball/softball (47,000), (3) track and field (46,000), (4) soccer (43,000), (5) basketball (32,000), (6) cross-country running (25,000), and (7) swimming/diving (20,000). The most popular sport among female athletes is soccer, followed closely by track and field.
High school sports
Most public high schools are members of their respective state athletic association, and those associations are members of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). Some states have separate associations for public and non-public high schools.
The 2018–19 school year was the first in 30 years to see a decrease in high school sports participation. Increases through the previous decades had been largely driven by growth in girls' participation. The high school sports with the highest number of participants for 2018–19 are:
Team sports
Football – 1,008,417
Basketball – 939,836
Baseball/Softball – 854,859
Soccer – 853,182
Volleyball – 516,371
Individual sports
Track & field (outdoor) – 1,093,621
Cross country – 488,640
Tennis – 348,750
Swimming & diving – 309,726
Wrestling – 268,565
Notes
Popular high school sports in various regions of the U.S. include the Texas High School football championships, the Indiana basketball championships, and ice hockey in Minnesota.
The Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament is the largest high school sporting event in the country, with average attendance to the top tier, or "AA", games over 18,000.
Sports media in the United States
Sports have been a major part of American broadcasting since the early days of radio. Today, television networks and radio networks pay millions (sometimes billions) of dollars for the rights to broadcast sporting events. Contracts between leagues and broadcasters stipulate how often games must be interrupted for commercials. Because of all of the advertisements, broadcasting contracts are very lucrative and account for the biggest chunk of major professional teams' revenues. Broadcasters also covet the television contracts for the major sports leagues (especially in the case of the NFL) in order to amplify their ability to promote their programming to the audience, especially young and middle-aged adult males.
The advent of cable and satellite television has greatly expanded sports offerings on American TV. ESPN, the first all-sports cable network in the U.S., went on the air in 1979. It has been followed by several sister networks and competitors. Some sports television networks are national, such as CBS Sports Network and Fox Sports 1, whereas others are regional, such as NBC Sports Regional Networks, Bally Sports and Spectrum Sports. General entertainment channels like TBS, TNT, and USA Network also air sports events.
Some sports leagues have their own sports networks, such as NFL Network, MLB Network, NBA TV, NHL Network, Big Ten Network, Pac-12 Network and SEC Network. Some sports teams run their own television networks as well.
Sports are also widely broadcast at the local level, ranging from college and professional sports down to (on some smaller stations) recreational and youth leagues. Internet radio has allowed these broadcasts to reach a worldwide audience.
Most popular sports in the United States
In the broadest definition of sports—physical recreation of all sorts—the four most popular sports among the general population of the United States are exercise walking (90 million), exercising with equipment (53 million), swimming (52 million) and camping (47 million). The most popular competitive sport (and fifth most popular recreational sport) is bowling (43 million). Other most popular sports are fishing (35 million), bicycling (37 million), weightlifting (33 million), aerobics (30 million), and hiking (28 million).
According to a January 2018 Poll by Gallup, 37% of Americans consider football their favorite spectator sport, while 11% prefer basketball, 9% baseball, and 7% soccer. There is some variation by viewer demographics. Men, show a stronger preference for football than women, conservatives a stronger preference than liberals, and those over 35 a stronger preference than those under 35. In all groups, however, football is still the most popular. Basketball and soccer are more popular among liberals than conservatives.
For two years in a row, 2021 and 2022, pickleball was named the fastest growing sport in the United States by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association (SFIA). Between 2019 and 2022 the SFIA estimates the number of US players increased almost 40% to 4.8 million.
Sports leagues in the United States
The sports leagues
The following table shows the professional sports leagues, which average over 15,000 fans per game and that have a national TV contract that pays rights fees.
See also
Sports in the United States by state
Sports Museum of America
Professional sports in the Western United States
Record attendances in United States club soccer
Homosexuality in sports in the United States
Sport in the United Kingdom
Notes
References
Further reading
Dubois, Daniel. American Sport in International History: The United States and the World Since 1865 (Bloomsbury, 2023).
Gerdy, John R. Sports: The All-American Addiction (2002) online
Gorn, Elliott J. A Brief History of American Sports (2004)
Harris, Othello, George Kirsch, et al. eds. Encyclopedia of Ethnicity and Sports in the United States (2000)
Jackson III, Harvey H. ed. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Sports & Recreation (2011) online
Jay, Kathryn. More Than Just a Game: Sports in American Life since 1945 (2004). online
Reiss, Steven A. ed. Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century: An Encyclopedia (3 vol 2011)
External links