Sports in the United States

Football, also known as gridiron or American football outside the U.S. and Canada, attracts more television viewers^[1] than baseball, due to football's significantly shorter schedule (although baseball attracts significantly more ticket sales) and is considered the most popular sport in the United States by some.

The National Football League (NFL) is the preeminent professional 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 playoffs, which eventually culminate in the league's championship game, the Super Bowl. 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 and worldwide. Some notable former players include Jim Brown, Roger Staubach, Dick Butkus, Terry Bradshaw, Otto Graham, Emmitt Smith, John Elway, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas and Lawrence Taylor. Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Ray Lewis, Peyton Manning, Terrell Owens, Ben Roethlisberger and LaDanian Tomlinson are a few of the most famous current NFL players.

Additional millions also watch college football throughout the autumn months, and some communities, particularly in rural areas, place great emphasis on their local high school team. The popularity of college and high school football in areas such as the Southern United States and the Great Plains stems largely from the fact that these areas generally do not possess markets large enough for a professional team. Nonetheless, college football has a rich history in the United States, predating even the NFL, and fans and alumni are generally very passionate about their teams.

Arena football, a form of football played in indoor arenas, had its own professional league, the Arena Football League, which operated from 1987 to 2008 and has indefinitely suspended operations. Several semi-professional leagues, mostly regional in nature, still exist, and some of the AFL's former teams have committed to the new Arena Football 1 league set for a 2010 launch.

The most popular baseball league in the U.S. is Major League Baseball. Due to its 162-game schedule, it attracts more ticket sales than any other sport in the United States, and is considered the second most popular professional sport. Teams play almost every day from April to October. The World Series is the championship series of Major League Baseball, 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. Notable American baseball players in history include Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Lou Gehrig, Nolan Ryan, Hank Aaron,Mike Schmidt and Jackie Robinson, who was instrumental in dissolving the color line and allowing African-Americans and Latin Americans into the white major leagues. Today, some of the notable American players include Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey, Jr., Chipper Jones, Alex Rodriguez, Joe Mauer, Manny Ramirez and Randy Johnson.

Major League Baseball 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 and Latin American countries such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Venezuela. These countries are represented well in Major League Baseball today by players such as Hideki Matsui, Ichiro Suzuki, Albert Pujols, David Ortiz, Ivan Rodriguez and Johan Santana. Canada, where baseball developed in tandem with the U.S., is also well represented in MLB with players such as Jason Bay, Russell Martin, and Justin Morneau.

Basketball, invented in 1891 by Canadian-born physical education teacher James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, is the second most popular sport (counting amateur levels) behind football. However, in regards to professional sports, basketball, or the NBA, is ranked third in popularity behind the NFL and MLB.^[1] 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 29 teams in the U.S. and 1 in Canada that play an 82-game season from November to April. 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. Notable NBA players in history include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Bob Cousy, Pete Maravich, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, John Stockton, and Jerry West, whose silhouette is featured on the NBA's logo. Notable players in the NBA today include Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Paul Pierce, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwight Howard, Allen Iverson and Shaquille O'Neal, .

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. Among the notable foreign-born players in the NBA today are two-time MVP Steve Nash (Canada), Peja Stojakovic (Serbia), Andrei Kirilenko (Russia), Andrea Bargnani (Italy), Žydrūnas Ilgauskas (Lithuania), Yao Ming (China), 2007 Finals MVP Tony Parker (France), Gasol brothers Pau and Marc (Spain), Manu Ginóbili (Argentina), and Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), who was the first European player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award. Notable retired foreign-born players include Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria), who has won an MVP award, two Defensive Player of the Year awards, and two Finals MVP awards, and Dikembe Mutumbo (DR Congo), who has won four Defensive Player of the Year awards.

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.

Like American football, basketball at both the college and high school levels is quite popular throughout the country. Every March, a 65-team, six-round, single-elimination tournament determines the national champions of college basketball. Most U.S. states also crown state champions among their high schools. More Americans play basketball than any other team sport, according to the National Sporting Goods Association.

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.

Ice hockey is another popular sport in the United States. Exported to the U.S. from Canada, 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 and the Midwest, including the states of Alaska, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. However, in recent years hockey has become increasingly popular in the Sun Belt due in large part to the expansion of the National Hockey League to cities like Tampa, Florida; Dallas, Texas; and Phoenix, Arizona.

The NHL is the major professional hockey league in North America, with 24 U.S.-based teams and six 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.

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.

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 Lake Placid 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".

Historically, the vast majority of NHL players had come from Canada, and almost all of the non-Canadians in the league were Americans. This began to change in the 1970s with an increase in the number of American-trained players and an influx of players from Europe, mostly from Sweden and Finland with a number of defectors from the then-Communist states of Eastern Europe. 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. Today, a slight majority of NHL players are Canadian, slightly more than 20% are Americans, and almost all of the remainder are European-trained. (For a more complete discussion, see Origin of NHL players.) Notable NHL players in history include Wayne Gretzky, Eddie Shore, Stan Mikita, Guy Lafleur, Mario Lemieux, Gordie Howe, and Bobby Orr. Famous NHL players today include Alexander Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Steve Staios, Martin Brodeur, Jarome Iginla, Joe Thornton, Chris Pronger, and Patrick Kane.

Soccer, known outside the U.S. and Canada as football, is a much less popular sport in the United States, where it has a popularity today that is at an all-time high, and is growing every year. The United States men's and women's senior national teams, as well as an under-23 men's team and under-20 and under-17 teams for both sexes, represent the United States in international football competition and is controlled by United States Soccer Federation.

Major League Soccer is the premier soccer league in the United States. MLS fields 15 clubs (with expansion clubs joining nearly every year), in a 30-game schedule that runs from April to October, with playoffs and the championship in November. Other professional football leagues in the U.S. include the USL (United Soccer Leagues), WPS (Women's Professional Soccer), and an indoor soccer league, MISL (Major Indoor Soccer League).

In 1994, when the U.S. hosted the FIFA World Cup, it had the highest attendance of any single-sport event in U.S. history.

Many notable international football players have played in American leagues, including past greats Pelé, Hristo Stoichkov, George Best, Carlos Valderrama, Johan Cruyff, Lothar Matthäus, and Franz Beckenbauer and current stars David Beckham, Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, and Freddie Ljungberg. Notable American players of the past and the present include Clint Dempsey, Bert Patenaude, Eric Wynalda, Brad Friedel, Brian McBride, Cobi Jones, Kasey Keller, Landon Donovan, Claudio Reyna, Tim Howard, and Alexi Lalas.

• 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 states and is 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. The NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship routinely ranks top in attendance of any NCAA Championship game in any sport.

• 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 an estimated 63,000 registered players,^[2] with more than a quarter being women. The semi-professional Rugby Super League is the premier domestic competition. The sport's worldwide governing body, the International Rugby Board (IRB), has created two international competitions as part of an attempt to grow the sport in North America. The first, the North America 4, included two American teams. It was superseded in 2009 by the Americas Rugby Championship, in which a "USA Select XV", effectively the second-level national side, competes. 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 has been elevated to one of the 12 "core teams" in the annual IRB Sevens World Series.

• Rugby league is a growing sport in the United States with plans to introduce a professional rugby league competition (National Rugby League USA) by March 2010 teams announced so far are Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Denver and Boston. The United States national rugby league team (the Tomahawks) represent the USA in rugby league; they are most famous for their 34-26 performance against Australia and they were involved in the Rugby League World Cup qualifiers but lost to the Samoa national rugby league team 42-10. The sport is played professionally in Australia, New Zealand, England, Wales, and France, and is recognized as the national sport in Papua New Guinea.

• Australian rules football is governed by US Footy in the U.S. and, though little-known in the country, it is also a developing sport with regular international competition against Canada.

• Curling is popular in northern states, possibly because of climate, proximity to Canada, or Scandinavian heritage.

• 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.

• 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,^[3] while only 82 schools in all three NCAA divisions combined sponsor varsity men's volleyball, with only 22 of them in Division I.^[4][5][6]

• 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.

• Ultimate (aka Ultimate Frisbee) was initially popular with high school and college students, and many now continue to play in adult recreational leagues.

• 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) 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 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s till it suffered a rapid decline. In fact the first intercollegiate tournament in America was a cricket tournament. 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.

• 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 amateurly. Handball is not a NCAA sport, but is played in the Summer Olympics. The sport's governing body is USA Team Handball.

• 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.^[7] 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. Popularized by the 2009 film Whip It.

• Dodgeball is played recreationally by children and adults alike. Was popularized by the 2004 film comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

Motor sports are also 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.^[8]

Historically, open wheel racing was the most popular nationwide, with the Indianapolis 500 being unquestionably the most widely followed race. However, an acrimonious split in 1994 between the primary league, 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.^[9] The feud was settled in 2008 with an agreement to merge the two series under the IRL banner, but not until enormous damage had been done to the sport.^[10]

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 southeastern 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 that can hold up to 170,000 spectators.

Another one of the most popular forms of motorsports 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.^[11]

There are Americans participating in international motorcycle racing. Currently, Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden represent the United States in MotoGp. Ben Spies and John Hopkins participate 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.

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 Texan cyclist Lance Armstrong.

• American Handball
• Equestrian competition – Despite lacking the national popularity seen in Europe, America usually performs extremely well in international equestrian competition.
• Wrestling – Though not a popular sport on a national level (except perhaps during the Olympics), high school wrestling is frequently one of the most popular participatory sports for young men in the United States.
• Martial arts competitions
• Shooting sports
• Skateboarding – Skateboarding culture largely developed in the United States, which continues to hold many of the top tournaments and produce leading skateboarders
• Surfing
• Fencing
• Swimming – swimming is a major competitive sport at high school and college level, but receives little mainstream media attentions outside of the Olympics
• Mountain biking
• Bowling – Bowling is the most popular participation sport in the United States with more than 100 million people going bowling each year.
• Figure skating
• Various extreme 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).

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.

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.

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.

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 draws considerably less attention than the regular season. Also, major-league professional teams in the U.S. never play teams from other organizations in meaningful games, although 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.

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.

No American government agency is charged with overseeing sports. However, the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (http://www.fitness.gov/about_overview.htm) 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.

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.

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.

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.

• American National Rugby League (AMNRL)
• Arena Football 1 (AF1)
• Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP)
• Major League Baseball (MLB)
• Major League Lacrosse (MLL)
• Major League Soccer (MLS)
• National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing (NASCAR)
• National Basketball Association (NBA)
• National Football League (NFL)
• National Indoor Soccer League (NISL)
• National Hockey League (NHL)
• National Lacrosse League (NLL)
• Professional Inline Hockey Association (PIHA)
• Rugby Super League (RSL)
• Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
• United Football League (2009) (UFL)
• United States of America Cricket Association (USACA)
• United States Tennis Association (USTA)
• United States Australian Football League (USAFL)
• USA Swimming (USA-S)
• Womens National Basketball Association (WNBA)
• Women's Professional Soccer (WPS)
• World Juggling Federation (WJF)
• Xtreme Soccer League (XSL)

• Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada
• United States at the Olympics

• "Arts, Entertainment and Recreation," Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2006 ed., U.S. Census Bureau (PDF file).
• Sports leagues and activities in the United States
• Harris Poll of Most Popular American Sports
• Major League Baseball
• National Football League
• National Basketball Association
• National Collegiate Athletic Association
• National Hockey League
• Major League Soccer
• United States of America Cricket Association
• Australian Football Association of North America
• USA Rugby (union)
• Soccer Network
• NASCAR