![[OC] Popularity of the “Big 5” Sports in the U.S.](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/ee225v0na9kf1-1536x891.jpeg "[OC] Popularity of the “Big 5” Sports in the U.S.")
I saw an infographic showing the rise of football, so I wanted to compare it with other sports in the past 100 years in the U.S.
Based on this data, football is far more appropriate to be called “America’s sport” than baseball.
For each year, the values for baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and soccer are normalized to sum to 100%. So, if baseball is at “40” in 1950, that means in the model it represented ~40% of the total popularity share among the five sports considered.
Sources: Gallup Historical Polls (Sports), Wikipedia’s (History of Sports in the U.S.)
Tools: Python / Matplotlib
Posted by XsLiveInTexas
37 Comments
it would be interesting to overlay the data for Canada as well to compare them
I’m really surprised soccer is more popular than hockey in the US. I don’t know a single person who watches MLS, but id say a third of my friends are really into NHL.
I also wonder how MMA factors into this now. I feel like that has gained a ton of popularity in the last decade
Soccer passing baseball in the US is such an alien thought
Baseball isn’t called America’s Sport. It’s called America’s Past time. Which still seems appropriate.
I’m colour-blind, Is nfl or basketball first (I assume its the nfl)
Actually kinda crazy that despite the NFL’s dominance with tv ratings today, it isn’t omnipresent the way baseball was before the 70s.
Slow and steady Hockey. You’ll be #1 in the year 2176.
Am I wrong in thinking baseball has recently made up some ground since they made the games shorter?
This is definitely not beautiful data, with all due respect.
It’s so hard to watch a baseball game of your team on tv
Baseball was popular because it‘s easy to follow along by radio. It was so popular in fact, that during ww2 the US would use baseball trivia to root out foreign assets/spies. Imagine being the one US soldier who genuinely just didn’t like baseball and getting cooked by your own country for it.
I heard basketball has declined since the late 90s. Maybe after Jordan retired
How are we measuring “popularity share”?
Would be interesting to see how boxing and mma compare to these
How is this data collected or presented? Basketball being essentially flat or slightly up from the 90’s seems off to me. Doesn’t seem today’s ratings are anywhere near as high of ratings back then.
Now show league of legends
The NHL is so incompetently run. Imagine having the speed of basketball (and then some), the drama of soccer, and unpredictability of baseball, and not being able to sell that effectively.
I think this might be somewhat misleading. If I’m understanding it correctly, an increase in popularity of one sport means a decrease in another, since they are percentage of marketshare. But I’m not sure how well this would reflect people being fans of multiple sports.
I can’t find a Gallup poll that backs this data up? Soccer overtaking hockey in the 1970s doesn’t pass the smell test, and the Gallup polls I see don’t have Soccer overtaking hockey until the 2010s
NHL is in such a disgraceful state right now. Even e-sport is more popular than hockey.
Such a shame that there has been almost no growth in popularity for hockey. Its the best sport by far. Definitely the most entertaining to watch.
Baseball is America’s Past Time, not its sport
makes sense, out of every sport on earth baseball ranks just above watching paint dry as the most boring sport on earth
My personal interest is the opposite. I am crazy for baseball right now.
I think this data is misleading. Baseball was so high because people basically didn’t play the other sports, but over time these sports have carved out loyal followings reducing Baseballs score. I’d love to see a ranked choice version of this survey, I bet baseball would do better.
define “popularity”; are we talking about viewership of the professional leagues, the tendency of people to play it, or just general interest? hockey should have seen a major peak in 1980s due to the “miracle on ice” and Gretzky. NBA had a well documented drop in attendance/viewership after Jordan.
Baseball has 160 games per year. As a fan, I probably watch 120 games a year of my team. That’s 120 x 3 hours =360 hours.
Football has 17 games per year. I probably watch 15 games per year of my team. That’s 15 x 4 hours =60 hours.
I might watch a higher percentage of football games, but I spend way more of my time watching baseball.
soccer is more popular than hockey? wat??
I…don’t believe soccer is nearly twice as popular as hockey.
How is this measured? By the amount of 9 year olds who play it? Then sure, I’ll buy that.
Otherwise I’d like to know in which corners of this country soccer is so much more popular.
What is this chart? What is the precise source of this exact data? Zero source notated. Garbage.
I haven’t met or talked to a person in like 5 years that likes the NBA.
Why would you index this instead of using the attendance numbers? Or revenues? Or tv viewership?
This is an extremely deceptive graph, just showing percentage of the total and no information about the growth of sports in the US with the transition to television, internet etc
I want to be part of this survey so I can say baseball is my favorite sport.
I’m sorry, but the contracts and ratings definitely suggest Baseball is a lot higher than this. Nobody would be getting those kind of contracts if not. It has gained significantly more global appeal, so maybe that’s why, but nevertheless I would want to know if the data this is based on. The only one I can see is a simple survey asking
“If you had to choose one sport as being ‘America’s sport,’ even if you don’t personally follow it, which sport would it be?”
The question was part of a broader survey about sports fandom in the United States.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/05/by-a-wide-margin-americans-say-football-not-baseball-is-americas-sport/
I’m curious what the rating say domestically. Maybe they still show it as declining but the corporate contracts and abundance of little leagues suggests otherwise.
From some of the comments, it sounds like this is measuring which sport people in the U.S. say is their favorite. There are other ways of looking at it, such as total attendance, TV viewership, the value of TV rights deals, franchise values for professional leagues, etc. I haven’t looked a the numbers, but my guess is that baseball might still be ahead of basketball on some of these measures. Combining college and pro basketball (men’s & women’s) and comparing that to Major League Baseball plus minor league baseball plus college baseball would be messy, though.
So I’ll say this I can easily watch and enjoy all 5. But hockey has to be the most underrated one. It almost combines basketball and soccer in a sense. Since you’ve always got movement and action happening like soccer, but you can be up and down the rink at a fast pace like basketball not to mention during regular season where getting 5 goals happens a decent amount. But you can also play a puck control game where you get 15-20 shots on goal and all are high quality. Not to mention you get a physical aspect to it and I like the idea that if you commit a penalty you get a legit advantage of being up a person.
Hockey’s like “slow and steady boys!”