What sports are declining?

Baseball, golf, tennis, horse racing and other sports have all seen huge declines.

What sports are decreasing in popularity?

Baseball, golf, tennis, horse racing and other sports have all seen huge declines. Even the usually untouchable N.F.L. was down 13 percent through Week 5. . . . Since each restarted play, the N.B.A. playoffs, N.H.L.

Is pro sports on a decline?

Among adults, the percentage of fans has slipped from about 35% to 30%. The teenage decline in interest extends to all other major sports as well. - During the glory days of the Blue Jays in the early 1990s, 33% of teenagers said they were following Major League Baseball (MLB). Today that figure stands at only 10%.

Are sports ratings going down?

According to Nielsen data, approximately 78.4 million viewers have tuned into broadcast and cable primetime programming since the TV season began on Sept. 21. That marks a 10% decline compared to the year-ago 87.1 million viewers, and a 16% drop compared to the analogous period during the 2018-19 campaign.

Are youth sports on the decline?

Yet the number of kids involved in team sports has been falling. In 2018, 38% of kids ages 6 to 12 played an organized sport on a regular basis, down from 45% in 2008 — mainly due to increasing costs, time commitments and the hypercompetitive nature of many sports.

Football not the only sport declining in popularity

What is the #1 sport in the world?

Soccer is the world's most popular sport. It is played by more than 20 million people in more than 140 countries. U.S.

Why are sports declining?

Sports leagues, especially Major League Baseball, are seeing declines in younger viewership. The change comes as people turn away from traditional TV viewing and toward social media, video games and streaming TV, a trend that has only grown during the Covid-19 pandemic, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Is the NBA losing fans?

Eventually, it will be official: The NBA again lost viewership on its ABC games, down from last season's all-time low of a 2.95 million average in 12 games. The current average for those premium network TV games in 2020-2021 is 2.83 million, per Showbuzz, with three ABC games to go.

Is the NBA in decline?

NBA revenue slipped from $8.8 billion in 2018-19 to $8.3 billion for the 2019-20 season. The NBA hasn't released revenue numbers for the shortened 72-game season in 2020-21, but Silver addressed reporters on Monday and notified the NBA's revenue was down about 35% last year instead of the estimated 40%.

Is the NBA losing viewers?

But the NBA is decidedly not more popular than ever by any means. To the contrary, regular-season ratings in 2020-21 were down 25% compared with the last uninterrupted season in 2018-19.

Is NFL losing popularity?

The most financially successful sports league in the world is in trouble. The National Football League (NFL) has seen its TV ratings consistently decline over the past few seasons.

What is the stupidest sport?

Are traditional sports dying?

Over the past 15 years, participation in various sports has had a consistent decline. Participation has declined more in some sports than others, but as far as the big four (Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Soccer), not one of them has increased in participation in youth ages 7-17.

Is NHL declining?

Outside of last season, the league's average attendance declined every season since its record-high. Even with a slight uptick from 2017-18, the 2019-20 total was still minus-1.28% to 2012-13.

Is football declining in America?

The numbers mostly increased between 2012 and 2015 before beginning to drop again, declining almost 19 percent in three years alone between 2016 and 2019. Participation in high school football specifically has also taken a hit, according to 2020 data from The National Federation of High Schools.

Is ESPN viewership down?

ESPN's total day viewership in the first quarter of 2022 was up 32% vs. last year to an average of 812,000 viewers (P2+), the network's best for the first three months of the year since 2017. The increase was even more pronounced in prime time – up 40% to 2.068M viewers.

How many white people watch the NBA?

Furthermore, according to a Nielsen's survey, the NBA has the highest share of black viewers, with 45 percent of its viewers being black and 40 percent of viewers being white, making it the only top North American sport that did not have a white majority audience.

Are NFL TV ratings down in 2020?

The 272 regular-season games averaged 17.1 million viewers across television and digital platforms. That is a 10% increase over 2020 and is the league's highest average since 2015. ESPN's Monday Night Football saw the biggest increase as its 19-game package was up 16% over last year, averaging 14.18 million.

Is the NBA struggling?

NBA ratings have fallen almost 45 percent in the past decade, while NFL ratings remain tops in sports and have been rising mildly in recent years. For a decade the quality of the NBA product has been going downhill.

Is baseball attendance down?

Attendance, while receiving a bounce from the pandemic-restricted season of 2020, continued to decline. Same for TV ratings for regular and post-season matchups. While there was improvement from 2020, the 2021 season numbers reflect the continued downward trend in overall interest in pro baseball.

What are the NFL ratings?

The record-shattering postseason ratings cap off a stellar season for the NFL overall in terms of ratings. The 272 regular-season games averaged 17.1 million viewers over television and digital platforms, a 10% increase over 2020 and the league's highest average since 2015.

What sport has the most fans in the US?

More recently over the past several 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.

Is NBA viewership down in 2020?

NBA games on ESPN averaged 1.19 million viewers down 10% from 2019-20 and -25% from 2018-19. TNT averaged a slightly better 1.22 million viewers, a decline of 7% from last season and -18% from 2018-19. (The audiences for 2020 and 2021 include out-of-home viewing.)

Is the NBA growing in popularity?

The NBA received its most viewers since the 2018-19 season. Viewership was up 19% from last season, which is a huge bump up and great news for the league. On average, games across ABC, ESPN, and TNT averaged 1.6 million viewers.

Is soccer declining in popularity?

Over the past three years, the percentage of 6- to 12-year-olds playing soccer regularly has dropped nearly 14 percent, to 2.3 million players, according to a study by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, which has analyzed youth athletic trends for 40 years.