In the US there are at least 4 sports considered popular and followed, like american football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey, unlike europe and south America where soccer wins by far. Which one is the most played and watched of these though, and does that depend on the state or groups of states? And which one is the least popular?
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Football is the most universally consumed sport. Folks of all classes, races, and regions partake in the spectacle every autumn weekend.
The South is consumed with college football while the West and Northeast are more focused on the NFL. The midwest tops the lot by following both.
Yeah it does depend a bit.
-Northeast is probably NFL football or baseball followed by ice hockey at both the pro and college level.
-South is football specifically at the college level and then the other relatively popular sport would be basketball at the college level
-Midwest is football at the college level probably followed by basketball at the college level and ice hockey at the pro and college level.
I honestly could not tell you what the most popular sport in the West would be although it’s probably football since that is generally the most followed sport in the US, although when it comes to participation it’s probably going to be soccer by a long shot.
NFL and College football pretty much is #1 everywhere. It varies what #2 is as it might be Baseball, Basketball, or even Nascar.
College Football is by far the most popular in my state. Then NFL. Not sure after that. Recently, the one of the hosts of the local sports radio said if they talk about any sport besides football for more than a very short period of time, the ratings plummet.
I don’t think professional viewing is the right lens for this, because the NFL is going to be the most popular league in every state by a mile. I think that youth and college participation is a better indicator of which sport has the largest effect on a state’s culture.
With that in mind, in Minnesota, it is hockey without question. One of our official state nicknames is The State of Hockey. Roughly 100,000 people in total attend the high school state tournament, with [a sold out crowd plus standing room in an NHL stadium for the boys’ championship game.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/2009_MN_Boys_Hockey_State_Championship.jpg/400px-2009_MN_Boys_Hockey_State_Championship.jpg)
Pretty much every kid plays at least a few years of youth hockey here, and most of them dream of lacing up for the Gophers when they grow up. Many are successful, as Minnesota produces the most NHL players by far, and has more currently active NHL players than all Canadian provinces except for Ontario. Minnesota has also produced the most ice hockey Olympians of any state, and over half of the 1980 Miracle on Ice team was from Minnesota and/or played college hockey at one of the 5 Division I hockey programs in the state.
I am going to remove Football from the conversation because that’s the winner. However it I had to guess on the remaining three
NBA – watched everywhere but I imagine its the biggest in Los Angeles (where I am from) and Boston
MLB – watched everywhere
NHL – Go up north and it is absolutely huge and honestly on par with football. You go to a few other cities and it’s huge as well. I live in the DC area now and hockey BY FAR is the second most popular sport. It is absolutely huge here
As others have mentioned, football is king basically everywhere. Other then that, there are some pretty distinct divides. Hockey tends to be popular in places where it gets cold enough in winter for ponds to freeze, and amateur hockey was historically more accessible.
I would also say that baseball is more popular with older generations, and soccer and basketball with younger ones.
Football in every part of the country. College football is especially popular in the south and rust belt and the NFL everywhere
>Which one is the most played and watched of these though
Those are two rather different things. The NFL is the most watched professional league and football the most watched college sport, but when it comes to people playing rec league sports football is far behind baseball or basketball.
I have to mention you said each area, and then stated that Europe is soccer everywhere. The Balkans and Baltics definitely like Basketball more than soccer. And In Spain Italy and Germany they’re solidly 2nd. Basketball is pretty fuckin big in Europe. The Soviet Union loved basketball a lot and had a good team.