Pickleball and Beyond: The Latest SFIA Sports Participation Trends

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Every year, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, or SFIA, takes on a number of research projects designed to offer insight into the world of sports through the lens of participation, equipment sales and other metrics. But the Topline Participation Report is one of the longest-standing and most ambitious surveys the organization conducts. Each year, thousands of people are surveyed about which one of 124 different activities they participate in and how often. The end result is a wealth of data and trends that tracks which sports are gaining popularity and which are struggling.

You may have heard the stat that pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the United States. That’s true, and that stat comes from and is verified by this report, which shows the wildly popular sport up another 50 percent in participation in the past year. We’ll go into why that remains the case, but the pickleball data only scratches the surface of this report. And in an Olympic year when many otherwise obscure sports get their highest visibility, you can expect some interesting things in the year ahead, which we’ll go into as well. Another trend that’s on the rise: team sports. More and more people are participating as a group and loving it. And we’ll go into which team sports they are liking the most. All of this information is invaluable for those who are in the business of organizing and hosting sports events. And the best news of all — both for the industry and for humankind — is that overall, participation in sports events is up and inactivity is down, a trend that we can all get behind. So sit back and enjoy this conversation with SFIA President and CEO Tom Cove as we dive into the data to pick out all the trends you need to know.

Among the topics in this episode:

• A look at overall participation rates (6:28)
• How people are spending more time in the sports they play (8:30)
• Why team sport participation is growing (10:46)
• Which specific team sports are on the upswing (13:18)
• The value of the “Olympic Bounce” (15:33)
• How sports are changing formats and the impact on events (20:53)
• Potential new data points for new Olympic sports (22:16)
• The details on pickleball’s rise in popularity (23:46)
• How the number of pickleball players compare to other sports (27:19)
• How pickleball numbers compare to other racquet sports (29:12)
• Trends in inactivity among the general population (30:19)
• What the data reveal about income levels and access to sports (32:34)
• Which activities those who are inactive say they would like to participate in (35:31)
• What birdwatch data says about participation (37:17)
• Why winter sports activities were up in the past year (39:02)
• What to make out of bowling’s rise in participation (40:04)
• Which parts of the report surprised him the most (41:09)

This episode is sponsored by: