Sports in the United States ??????
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Sports are an important part of the culture of the United States. The four most popular team sports are ones that developed in North America: American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey. The major leagues of these sports, the National Football League (NFL), the Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) enjoy massive media exposure and are considered the preeminent competitions in their respective sports in the world.
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Three of those leagues have teams that represent Canadian cities, and all four are among the most lucrative sports leagues in the world. Soccer(association football) is less popular as a spectator sport in the United States than it is in many other countries, though it has wide participation in amateur and semi-professional levels, particularly among youths and people of Latin American descent, who constitute people from Mexico all the way down to South America. The top league, Major League Soccer, continues to grow and is starting to approach the level of the NBA and the NHL in terms of attendance, although it lags far behind in average salary and TV interest, and many American soccer fans are still more likely to follow national competitions and European leagues more than Major League Soccer.
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Professional teams in all major sports operate as franchises within a league. All major sports leagues use the same type of schedule with a play off tournament after the regular season ends. In addition to the major league-level organizations, several sports also have professional minor leagues.
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Sports are particularly associated with education in the United States, with most high schools and universities having organized sports. College sports competitions play an important role in the American sporting culture. In many cases college athletics are more popular than professional sports, with the major sanctioning body being the NCAA.
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Olympics
The United States has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games, except the 1980 Summer Olympics, which it boycotted. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is the National Olympic Committee for the United States.
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American athletes have won a total of 2570 medals at the Summer Olympic Games and another 253 at the Winter Olympic Games. More medals have been won in athletics (track and field) (738, 29%) and swimming (489, 19%) than any others. Thomas Burke was the first athlete to represent the United States at the Olympics. He took first place in both the 100 meters and the 400 meters of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. American athlete Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete, with 22 Olympic medals, 18 of them gold.
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The United States has won more gold and overall medals than any other country in the Summer Games and overall. The US also has the second-most overall medals at the Winter games, trailing only Norway. Earlier United States mainly conceded to Soviet Union at summer Games and to Soviet Union, Norway, East Germany at winter Games only and now strongly fights with China only at summer Games. The United States is the only country to have won at least one gold medal at every Winter Olympics, and has won the total medal count at Lake Placid in the 1932 Winter Olympics and at Vancouver in the 2010 Winter Olympics. During the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, the United States set a record for most total medals of any country at a single Winter Olympics.
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The United States has hosted both Summer and Winter Games in 1932 and most occasions of the Games among other countries - eight times, four times each for the Summer and Winter Games:
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Individual sports
Motor sports
Motor sports are widely popular in the United States, but Americans generally ignore major international series, such as Formula One and MotoGP, in favor of home-grown racing series. Americans, like the rest of the world, initially began using public streets as a host of automobile races. As time progressed it was soon discovered that these venues were often unsafe to the public as they offered relatively little crowd control. Promoters and drivers in the United States discovered that horse racing tracks could provide better conditions for drivers and spectators than public streets. The result has been long standing popularity for oval track racing while road racing has waned; however, an extensive illegal street racing culture persists.
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Historically, open wheel racing was the most popular nationwide, with the Indianapolis 500 being the most widely followed race. However, an acrimonious split in 1994 between the primary series, CART (later known as Champ Car), and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (the site of the Indy 500) led to the formation of the Indy Racing League, which launched the rival IndyCar Series in 1996. From that point, the popularity of open wheel racing in the U.S. declined dramatically. The feud was settled in 2008 with an agreement to merge the two series under the IndyCar banner, but enormous damage had already been done to the sport.
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The CART-IRL feud coincided with an enormous expansion of stock car racing, governed by NASCAR, from its past as a mostly regional circuit mainly followed in the Southern U.S. to a truly national sport. NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series generally harnesses an 8 million person audience on television, as well as sold-out crowds at many tracks.
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Another one of the most popular forms of motor sports in the United States is the indigenous sport of drag racing. The largest drag racing organization, the National Hot Rod Association, boasts 80,000 members, more than 35,000 licensed competitors and nationwide television coverage.
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And still another one of the most popular forms of motor sports in the United States is the indigenous sport of monster truck racing.
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Although international street motorcycle racing does not enjoy the mainstream popularity of its all terrain cousin, motocross in the USA, American riders have been very successful. Currently, Ben Spies, Colin Edwards, and Nicky Hayden represent the United States in MotoGp. John Hopkins participates in the Superbike World Championship. Seven different Americans have won a combined fifteen championships in MotoGp. Eddie Lawson has won four championships (more than any other American). Five American riders have won eight Superbike World Championships (more than any other nationality). There are two MotoGP events held in the U.S. These include the United States motorcycle Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. World Superbike holds one race in the U.S. at Miller Motorsports Park
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Although the world's most popular form of motorsport, Formula One, is not as popular in the U.S., a F1 race will be hosted in Austin, Texas in November of 2012. It is to be held at a new venue (which will later host MotoGP) named Circuit of the Americas. It will be the first United States Grand Prix held since 2007. A second race, called Grand Prix of America, will be held in New Jersey starting in 2013. The New York City skyline will be offered as panoramic backdrop for the race. The United States also has two former Driver's World Champions;Phil Hill (1961) & Mario Andretti (1978). The last American to compete in F1 is Scott Speed in 2007.
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Another form of auto-racing in the United States is sports car racing. While not as popular as other forms of racing in the country, both the American Le Mans Series and the Rolex Sports Car Series operate as the premier series of sports car endurance racing in the U.S. The former, known informally as the ALMS and sanctioned byIMSA, is based on the rules that govern the world famous 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in France. As such, there is a typical European flair in the races and the cars that participate. The Rolex series, sanctioned byGrand-Am, has rules similar to the ALMS, but the cars themselves are ultimately different and are made with a more cost-efficient formula in mind. Among the more well known sports car races in America are the 12 Hours of Sebring, 24 Hours of Daytona, and Petit Le Mans. All three races have been featured as rounds in world championships in previous years with Sebring slated to open the 2012 season of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
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The Australia-based V8 Supercars series, which uses cars roughly similar in appearance to NASCAR stock cars but runs exclusively on road courses and street circuits, will expand to the U.S. in 2013 with a race at the Circuit of the Americas.
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Track & field
There are many track and field events which involve individual athletes competing, including sprints, middle and long-distance events, and hurdling. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus and hammer. There are also "combined events", such as heptathlon and decathlon, in which athletes compete in a number of the above events.
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Outdoor sports
Hunting and fishing are very popular in the U.S., especially in rural areas. Other popular outdoors activities in the country include hiking, mountain climbing, paintball and kayaking. In winter, many Americans head to mountainous areas for skiing and snowboarding. Cycling and road bicycle racing have increased in popularity, fueled by the success of cyclists Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong.
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Other popular individual sports
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Team sport
American football
American football, known within the country simply as football, has the most participants of any sport at both high school and college levels.
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The NFL is the preeminent professional football league in the United States. Through expansion teams and the landmark merger with the American Football League in 1970, the NFL has reached its current mark of 32 franchises divided into two conferences. After a 16-game regular season, each conference sends six teams to the NFL Playoffs, which eventually culminate in the league's championship game, the Super Bowl.
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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 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.
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Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest annual sporting event held in the United States. The Super Bowl itself is always among the highest-rated programs annually in the Nielsen ratings.
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Arena football, a form of football played in indoor arenas, has a professional league, the Arena Football League. The original league was active from 1987 to 2008 and folded in 2009, but several teams from the AFL and its former minor league, af2, relaunched the league in 2010. Several semi-professional leagues, mostly regional in nature, also exist.
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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 Leagueand the National League, and the winner is determined through a best-of-seven playoff.
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Baseball and the variant, softball, are also popular participatory sports in the U.S. However, unlike American football, baseball is also popular in many other countries, notably Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Latin American countries or territories such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Venezuela.
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These Latin countries or territories as well as Asian countries are well represented in Major League Baseball today.
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Basketball
Basketball was invented in 1891 by Canadian-born physical education teacher James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts. Of those Americans citing their favorite sport, basketball is ranked second (counting amateur levels) behind football. However, in regards to professional sports, basketball, or the NBA, is ranked third.
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The National Basketball Association, more popularly known as the NBA, is the world's premier men's 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. The American Basketball Association, active from 1967 until 1976, when it merged with the NBA, was the last major competitor of the NBA.
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In the past decade, an increasing number of players born outside the United States have signed with NBA teams, sparking league interest in different parts of the world.
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Since the 1992 Summer Olympics, NBA players have represented the United States in international competition and won several important tournaments. The Dream Team was the unofficial nickname of the United States men's basketball team that won the gold medal at the 1992 Olympics.
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Like American football, basketball at both the college and high school levels is quite popular throughout the country. Every March, a 68-team, six-round, single-elimination tournament (commonly called March Madness) determines the national champions of NCAA Division I men's college basketball.
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Most U.S. states also crown state champions among their high schools. Also like American football, many high school basketball teams have intense local followings, especially in the Midwest and Upper South. In states like Indiana and Kentucky, it is common for local high school basketball teams to play in gyms that seat more than 5,000 spectators, even in the more rural areas. Indiana alone has 10 of the 12 largest high school gyms in the United States and is famous for its basketball passion, famously known as Hoosier Hysteria.
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More Americans play basketball than any other team sport, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. In 2009 there were 41,000 surveys taken and they were compiled to show that 26.2million kids 6 years old and older play basketball.
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Netball, a derivative of basketball invented in the United States and usually played by women, is popular in Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the West Indies.
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Ice hockey
Ice hockey is another popular sport in the United States. Originating from North America, the sport is commonly referred to simply as "hockey." In the U.S. the game is most popular in regions of the country with a cold winter climate, namely New England, the northern half of the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest, including the states of Alaska, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. However, since the 1990s hockey has become increasingly popular in the Sun Belt due in large part to the expansion of the National Hockey League to cities like Anaheim, California; Tampa, Florida; Dallas, Texas; Raleigh, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Phoenix, Arizona.
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The NHL is the major professional hockey league in North America, with 23 U.S.-based teams and 7 Canadian-based teams competing for the Stanley Cup. Other professional leagues in the U.S. include the American Hockey League and the ECHL. Additionally, nine U.S.-based teams compete in the three member leagues of the Canadian Hockey League.
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USA Hockey is the official governing body for amateur hockey in the U.S. The United States Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Eveleth, Minnesota.
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Although hockey does not enjoy the same popularity as football, baseball and basketball in the U.S., one of the nation's greatest ever sporting moments came during the 1980 Winter Olympics when the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviet Union 4?3 in the first game of the medal round before going on to beat Finland to claim the gold medal. The game has since been called the "Miracle on Ice". Over the course of the last few years, many Americans have become more familiar with the great excitement, speed, and physical play of hockey, and it is gaining on the NBA in terms of popularity and is slowly becoming a more familiar sport to the average American family.
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Historically, the vast majority of NHL players had come from Canada, with a small handful of Americans (mostly out of the Minnesota, Michigan and New England areas); only one European-trained player made his NHL debut during the 1942?67 Original Six era. After the NHL doubled in size in 1967, this began to change. During the 1970s and 1980s, the number of American-trained players dramatically increased, and the first wave of European players entered the league, mostly from Sweden and Finland with a number of defectors from the then-Communist states of Eastern Europe.
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After the fall of communism in Europe, many players from the former Soviet bloc flocked to the NHL, primarily from the Czech Republic, Russia, and Slovakia. Western European players also significantly increased their presence following the fall of communism. The late first decade of the 21st century saw another surge in the number of American-trained players. Today, a slight majority of NHL players are Canadian, slightly more than 20% are Americans, and virtually all of the remainder are European-trained. (For a more complete discussion, see Origin of NHL players.)
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Soccer
Association football, commonly known as "soccer" in the U.S. and "football" in other countries (see names for association football), is not as popular as the four sports traditionally considered major in the United States, although it has gained an increasing following in recent years, and is extremely popular as a children's sport, although it has not yet reached the international popularity of the sport. The United States men's and women?s senior national teams, as well as a number of age-grade teams for both sexes, represent the United States in international soccer competitions and are controlled by the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer).
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Major League Soccer is the premier soccer league in the United States. As of 2012, MLS fields 19 clubs (16 from the US, 3 from Canada), with plans to add at least one more for the 2013 season. The 34-game schedule runs from mid-March to late October, with the playoffs and championship in November. Other professional soccer leagues in the U.S. include a new incarnation of the North American Soccer League; the United Soccer Leagues' new USL Proand already-existing Premier Development League; and an indoor soccer league, MISL (Major Indoor Soccer League).
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Women's soccer has been played at a fully professional level, but has not seen sustained success. The two attempts at fully professional leagues?the Women's United Soccer Association and Women's Professional Soccer?each folded after playing three seasons. The current top level of the sport in the U.S. is the semi-professional WPSL Elite League.
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Due to factors such as the continuing presence of the US men's and specially women's national teams in international soccer competitions, the impact of the global trend towards globalization, and the large number of immigrants, particularly Latin Americans, in the USA, it is possible that soccer will continue to rise in popularity in the USA and reach the level of the top four professional team sports in the future. Soccer-specific stadiums continue to be built around the country, and many American sports fans, as compared to decades ago, now have a keen awareness of and even follow major competitions such as the World Cup and the UEFA Champions League as well as the leading European leagues.
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Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin. Although it is not a very popular sport nationwide, it is quite popular in mid-Atlantic and New England and the box version of the game has exploded in the Upper Midwest states. All forms of lacrosse are increasing in national popularity. NLL and MLL are the national box and outdoor lacrosse leagues, respectively, and have increased their following in recent years. Also, many of the top Division I college lacrosse teams draw upwards of 7?10,000 for a game, especially in the Mid-Atlantic and New England areas.
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Rugby Union
Rugby union, common in other English-speaking nations, is not as well known in the United States. Rugby is played recreationally, professionally and in colleges, though it is not governed by the NCAA (see College rugby). There are more than 457,983 registered and unregistered players, with more than a quarter being women. The semi-professional Rugby Super League is the premier domestic competition. More recently the national side has been competing at the Rugby World Cup, and the country's national team in the sevens variation of the sport is now one of the 15 "core teams" in the annual IRB Sevens World Series.
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Rugby participation in the US 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 as the fastest growing sport in the US. Rugby's profile in the US has received a tremendous boost from the IOC's announcement in 2009 that rugby would return to the Olympics in 2016. USA Rugby has formally become a member of the US Olympic Committee, allowing rugby players and programs access to Olympic resources.
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Two recent American presidents have been rugby players. Bill Clinton developed an interest in rugby in England, playing at Oxford University. George W. Bush was a keen player, during high school and University, and was on Yale's 1st XV, and in 1968, he was part of their dramatic win over Harvard.
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Rugby League
There are two semi-professional club competitions in Rugby League in the United States, the American National Rugby League (AMNRL) and USA Rugby League (USARL). Both leagues are centred on the East coast of the USA. The national team is known by the moniker Tomahawks.
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Volleyball
Volleyball is also a notable sport 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 support for college volleyball is dramatically skewed in favor of the women's game. Over 300 schools in NCAA Division I alone (the highest of three NCAA tiers) sponsor women's volleyball at the varsity level, while only 82 schools in all three NCAA divisions combined sponsor varsity men's volleyball, with only 22 of them in Division I.
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Cricket
Cricket, another common sport in Commonwealth countries, is not a popular sport in the U.S. Many amateur cricket leagues have been formed by Indian, Pakistani, Australian, South African, English and Caribbean (more specifically West Indian (Jamaican)) immigrants, and as a result, the sport has made limited inroads into the mainstream sports community because of a large influx of migrants from cricketing countries who make up almost 16 million of the American population. Cricket used to be the most popular sport in America during the 18th century, 19th century and early 20th century, when it suffered a rapid decline. In fact the first intercollegiate tournament in America was a cricket tournament.
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The first annual Canada vs. USA cricket match, played since the 1840s, was attended by 10,000 spectators at Bloomingdale Park in New York. The USA vs. Canada cricket match is the oldest international sporting event in the modern world, predating even today's Olympic Games by nearly 50 years. USA participated in the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy where they were comprehensively beaten in matches against Australia and New Zealand. United States of America Cricket Association governs the professional Cricket in the country and are an associate member of International Cricket Council. United States Cricket team currently plays in World Cricket League Division IV to work their way up to 2013 Cricket World Cup Qualifier in order to enter 2015 Cricket World Cup. In 2011, they played Americas Region Twenty20 Division One tournament and qualified for the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. United States Cricket team also plays in the ICC Americas Championship and were qualified for ICC Intercontinental Cup in the past.
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United States Youth Cricket Association formed in 2010 to develop the interest in sport among the young kids. Women's cricket is one of the plans of USACA but it is a long road to build the infra-structure. Cricket is one of the most watched pay per view sports in the USA and multiple channels are provided by DirecTv, Dish Network and Comcast TV services. Starting 2012, ESPN will broadcast Cricket on ESPN3 and on its regular channels. The only professional Cricket Stadium in the USA is Central Broward Regional Park located in Lauderhill, Florida. The Leo Magnus Cricket Complex in Los Angeles and Philadelphia Cricket Club in Philadelphia are few other established Cricket Grounds in the country that could qualify to play professional Cricket. There were plans to build a brand new stadium in Indianapolis by the city's mayor Greg Ballard in 2009 but it was not materialized lack of sponsors. Compton Cricket Club is a private club in Los Angeles that uses Cricket to promote Peace and good will among the troubled neighborhood of Compton.
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Curling
Curling is popular in northern states, possibly because of climate, proximity to Canada, or Scandinavian heritage. The national popularity of curling is growing after significant media coverage of the sport in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics.
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Gaelic games
Gaelic football and hurling are governed by North American GAA and New York GAA. Like Australian rules football, they do not have a high profile but are developing sports, with New York fielding a representative team in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.
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Inline Hockey
Inline hockey was invented by Americans as a way to play the sport in all climates. The PIHA is the league with the largest number of professional teams in the nation. Street hockey is a non-standard version of inline hockey played by amateurs in informal games.
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Water polo
Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores the most goals by getting the ball past the opposing team's goalkeeper into the net. Gameplay involves swimming, players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a net defended by a goalie. Water polo, therefore, has strong similarities to the land-based game of team handball. The frequency of 'man-up' (or 'power play') situations also draws comparisons with Ice hockey.
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Ultimate (Frisbee)
Ultimate (originally Ultimate Frisbee) was initially popular with high school and college students, and many now continue to play in adult recreational leagues. The game is played by two teams of seven players. Teammates toss a flying disc (Frisbee) to each other in order to move it down the field without letting it touch the ground and eventually score by catching it in the endzone.
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Handball
Team handball, a common sport in European countries, is not a popular sport in the U.S. The sport is mostly played in the country on the amateur level. Handball is not a NCAA sport, but is played in the Summer Olympics. The sport's governing body is USA Team Handball.
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Roller derby
Roller derby is a fast-growing contact sport played on roller skates. As of September 2009, there were 350 women's, men's, and junior leagues in the U.S.A. The sport is also played in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. The sport's national governing body is USA Roller Sports, with the Women's Flat Track Derby Association being the largest association of U.S./Canadian leagues. There are roller derby leagues in most metropolitan areas in the U.S. The vast majority of these are flat track roller derby leagues, with a handful of banked track derby leagues as well. Women's leagues make up the lion's share of them, there were 28 men's and co-ed leagues and 16 junior leagues as of September 2009. It was portrayed in the 2009 film Whip It.
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Dodgeball
Dodgeball is played traditionally by children in school, though adult leagues in urban areas have formed within the past 10 years. A caricatured version was portrayed in the 2004 film comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
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Kickball
Kickball is also played recreationally by adults and children, especially at the elementary school level. Its rules are largely identical to baseball, except that no bat is used and instead a large rubber ball is rolled along the ground for the "batter" to kick.
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Organization of American sports
Amateur sports
The extent in the United States to which sports are associated with secondary and tertiary education is rare among nations. Millions of students participate in athletics programs operated by high schools and colleges. Student-athletes often receive scholarships to colleges in recognition of their athletic potential. Currently, the largest governing body of collegiate sports is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
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High school and college sports fill the developmental role that in many other countries would be the place of youth teams associated with clubs. The major professional sports leagues operate drafts once a year, in which each league's teams selected eligible prospects. Eligibility differs from league to league. Baseball and ice hockey operate minor league systems for players who have finished education but are not ready or good enough for the major leagues. The NBA also has a development league for players who are not ready to play at the top level.
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Especially in basketball and football, high school and particularly college sports are followed with a fervor equaling or exceeding that felt for professional sports; college football games can draw six-digit crowds and, for upper-tier schools, sports are a significant source of revenue.
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Professional sports
For the most part, there is no system of promotion and relegation in American professional sports. Major sports leagues operate as associations of franchises. The same 30?32 teams play in the league each year unless they move to another city or the league chooses to expand with new franchises.
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All American sports leagues use the same type of schedule. After the regular season, the 8?16 teams with the best records enter a playoff tournament leading to a championship series or game. American sports, except for soccer, have no equivalent to the cup competitions that run concurrently with leagues in European sports. Even in the case of soccer, the cup competition, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, draws considerably less attention than the regular season. Also, the only top-level U.S. professional teams that play teams from other organizations in meaningful games are those in MLS. As of the 2012 season, all U.S.-based MLS teams qualify for the U.S. Open Cup, in which they compete against teams from lower-level U.S. leagues. In addition, four of these teams qualify to play clubs from countries outside the U.S. and Canada in the CONCACAF Champions League. NBA teams have played European teams in preseason exhibitions on a semi-regular basis, and recent MLS All-Star Games have pitted top players from the league against major European soccer teams, such as members of the Premier League.
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International competition is not as important in American sports as it is in the sporting culture of most other countries, although Olympic ice-hockey and basketball tournaments do generate attention. The first international baseball tournament with top-level players, the World Baseball Classic, also generated some positive reviews after its inaugural tournament in 2006.
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Government regulation
No American government agency is charged with overseeing sports. However, the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports advises the President through the Secretary of Health and Human Services about physical activity, fitness, and sports, and recommends programs to promote regular physical activity for the health of all Americans. The U.S. Congress has chartered the United States Olympic Committee to govern American participation in the Olympic Movement and promote amateur sports. Congress has also involved itself in several aspects of sports, notably gender equity in college athletics, illegal drugs in pro sports, sports broadcasting and the application of antitrust law to sports leagues.
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Sports media in the United States
Sports have been a major part of American broadcasting since the early days of radio. Today, television networks pay millions 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 pro 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.
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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.
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Many of the professional sports teams run their own cable networks. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner started the YES Network which broadcasts primarily Yankees games and television shows. His starting of his own network led to almost all teams having a station for their franchises.
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Despite the size of the sports market in the U.S., the country does not have a national daily sports newspaper. This is because the contiguous 48 states spread across four time zones, and games on the West Coast may not end until early morning in the East. This makes it difficult to distribute a national newspaper with the scores of late games in time for morning delivery. However, there are many American sports magazines, the best-known being Sports Illustrated.
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Most popular sports in the United States
Baseball vs. Football
Though baseball has historically been called the "national pastime", American football has grown in popularity with the advent of television over the last several decades. Most debates about America's most popular sport tend to center on the degree of Americans' identification with either of these two games; the question is a difficult one to resolve.
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Advocates of baseball point to the overwhelming number of baseball tickets sold annually in the United States and Canada, compared to NFL football. It is likely the average individual Americans will attend many times more baseball games in their lives than NFL football games, due to baseball's longer schedule and football's (generally) higher ticket prices. Advocates of football, in turn, point to football's large television audience, including the Super Bowl, typically the most-watched television event of the year. Football also enjoys more organized youth participation, though the sport has recently[when?] endured negative publicity in the world of youth sports due to media coverage of documented health and injury risks posed to players Certain teams of both sports, such as the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers, have cultivated famously loyal fan bases across the country. In many cases, identification with a certain football or baseball team is a matter of family inheritance and local identity.
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In truth, the popularity of each, as well as of basketball, hockey, and soccer, may vary depending on region, ethnicity and age. It could be claimed that baseball is more popular in the northeast, where it developed over 150 years ago, than in other regions. It could be said that college football (i.e. NCAA) enjoys unparalleled popularity in the southeastern states. Hockey competes for 'most popular sport' status in areas of northern and western New York State, the northern Great Lakes states and in some parts of New England. Basketball may also be the most popular professional sport in cities during particular periods when the local NBA team may be enjoying an era of remarkable success, such as in Chicago during the dynasty days of the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan during the 1990s, or in Los Angeles today with the Los Angeles Lakers having won five titles in the past decade. It is also primarily followed in cities where there are no other sports teams in the four major professional leagues, such as in the case of Oklahoma City with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Sacramento with the Sacramento Kings, San Antonio with the highly successful San Antonio Spurs, or in Portland with the Portland Trail Blazers. Many migrants living in the United States also continue to follow soccer as their favorite team sport just as they did in their home countries.
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Furthermore, many keen sports fans in the USA may actually resist naming which team sport in particular is their favorite, instead preferring to avidly follow throughout the year whichever particular team sport is on its specific playing season: baseball (and to a lower extent soccer) in the summer, pro and college football in autumn and winter, and basketball during the NCAA college basketball championships in March (called the "March Madness") followed by the succeeding NBA playoffs in the spring, or ice hockey during the playoffs and Stanley Cup finals in June. Also, the relatively lower levels of fan appreciation of Major League Soccer, as compared to the top four professional sports leagues, is not the best gauge of the overall popularity of soccer in the United States, as many soccer fans in the United States would prefer to follow the European and/or Latin leagues and international competitions rather than their own professional domestic leagues.
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Participation among the general population
In the broadest sense of the 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).
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Organized college and high school sports
Among organized sports, football is the clear leader in number of participants at both the high school and college level, despite being almost entirely male.
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According to NCAA reporting on varsity team participation after football (64 thousand), the most popular participatory college sports are baseball/softball (47 thousand), track and field (46 thousand), soccer (43 thousand), basketball (32 thousand), cross-country running (25 thousand), and swimming/diving (20 thousand). The most popular sport among female athletes is soccer, followed closely by track and field.
For both sexes, football has the most participants among organized high school sports, followed by basketball, track & field, baseball/softball, soccer, and cross-country. Wrestling is the sixth most popular sport for boys, while volleyball is the third most popular sport for girls.
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List of Sports Leagues in the United States
The Four Major Sports Leagues
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Other Sports Leagues
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