Hockey and yoga were the two fastest growing sports in terms of participation last year, according to the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA). Participation in hockey grew 60.0% while participation in yoga, which grew 21.9% in 2008, grew 20.9%.
Among sports and activities with 10 million or more participants, fitness activities occupied five of the next six spots on the list. Exercising with equipment (57.2 million participants) showed a 4.0% increase, followed by aerobic exercising (33.1 million) and camping (50.9 million), 3.0% each. Next in line were hiking (34.0 million), 2.8%, and weight lifting (34.5 million), 1.8%, and running/jogging (32.2 million), 1.0%.
The overall percentage leader was ice hockey, which showed a 60.0% increase to 3.1 million participants. Several other activities with fewer than 10 million participants showed increases in 2009, including muzzleloading (3.8 million), 11.6%; cross country skiing (1.7 million), 7.4%; alpine skiing (7.0 million), 7.3%; snowboarding (6.2 million), 5.7%; and airgun target shooting (5.2 million), 4.3%.
Exercise walking, the No. 1 sports and recreation activity on the survey with 93.4 million participants, showed its first ever decline, 3.4%. Other fitness activities to decline were and working out at a club, which slipped 2.6% to 38.3 million participants.
“Despite these few declines, the fitness category continues strong,” said NSGA Vice President of Information & Research Thomas B. Doyle. “On the other hand, most team sports, with the exception of ice hockey and soccer (+0.6% to 13.6 million participants), showed declines in participation last year.”
Among traditional team sports, basketball participation was down 5.0% to 24.4 million; tackle football, down 6.2% to 8.9 million; softball, down 7.9% to 11.8 million, volleyball, down 11.7% to 10.7 million, and baseball, down 13.5% to 11.5 million. That contrasts with 2008 increases in soccer (12.5%), basketball (6.4%), softball (3.6%) and volleyball (1.0%). Gymnastics (3.9 million) and wrestling (3.0 million) were surveyed in 2009 but not in 2008.
Other activities newly surveyed for the 2009 report include target archery, dart throwing, kayaking, and table tennis.
A complete chart is available here.
For this survey, a participant is someone age seven or older who takes part in the sport or activity more than once in a calendar year. “Sports Participation in 2009 — Series I and II” cover 45 sports, recreation and fitness activities. Participation rates for all the sports surveyed may be viewed on the NSGA website (www.nsga.org).
