Which sports are practiced by the most athletes in the US and around the world?

Question

I am looking for the total number of competitive/licensed practitioners. I suppose the most widely practiced sport in the world must be soccer. I'll appreciate a top 10 list or a link a comprehensive list.

Answer 1

The following table is layed out like this: Sport * 2002 Estimates of Participants Worldwide * Number of Affiliated National Federations

Volleyball * 998 Million * 218

Basketball * 400 Million * 211

Table Tennis * 300 Million * 186

Soccer *1002 Million * 264

Swimming * 1500 Million * 187

Badminton * 200 Million * 147

Tennis * 60 Million * 191

Baseball * 60 Million * 110

Dragon Boat Racing * 50 Million * 51

Team Handball * 18 Million * 147

Hockey * 3 million * 118

Judo * 2.5 Million * 187

Rugby * 2 Million * 97

Cycling * 600,000 * 160

Bocce * Pending * 72

Cricket * Pending * 74

Here is more input:

Most popular team sports, including players at school level, univeristy level, club level, tv viewership globally, countries with a national squad etc. 1) Soccer 2) Rugby 3) Cricket. Over 41 countries have a national teams playing one day cricket, not 11. However, only 10 countries play Test Cricket (5 day), which is not one day cricket or limited overs cricket. Over 95 Countries, and counting, have a Rugby Union national team. Rugby Union was an olympic sport, but got too big for the olympics, hence it now has its own World Cup, like cricket. Strangely enough, the USA was the last team to win gold in Rugby Union at the Olympics. www.irb.com/WR Sevens Rugby (not Rugby Union which has 15 players a side, not seven) is said to be the fastest growing sport in the world, with over 33 countries taking part in the annual championships. http://www.irbsevens.com/Standings/

Soccer: 45 millon; vollyball: 39 million; hockey: 23 million

Football, obviously. It's called "soccer" by the way in countries that imported the game from England as part of an expensive private education in the C19th: United States, Australia, Wales, Ireland etc. The term originates in Oxford University and is a slang abbreviation of "association"; Oxford also came up with "rugger" for rugby and "brekker" for breakfast. The "association" concerned is the "Football Association" - which, being the first in the world, didn't need to specify that it was the English FA. The term was invented to distinguish this "association football" from "rugby football" at the university. Rugby was a variant form of football developed at the private school in Rugby and was also imported by these same countries. Lacking an international movement, rugby football then developed differently around the world: American football, Aussie rules, Gaelic football etc. In some parts of the UK (Wales, north of England), "football" still refers to rugby. For the rest of the world, not influenced by the English education system, football was directly imported by working class English footballers travelling abroad. For example, British railway workers imported the game to South America when they worked on some of the great rail systems there in the late C19th. In most countries, the game is therefore called "football" or "futbol" or something similar. In Spain, they still call the coach "el mister".

Soccer of cours

When I compiled these stats I was surprised to find out how popular volleyball was. I guess it just took me by surprise since it is not very big where I live, or in North America for that matter. (In my opinion)