The Most Popular Sports In America

DME and I recently were having a debate about the most popular sports in America. We were talking about TBO's recent article about the 13 cities with 4 pro major sports teams. DME wondered out loud why hockey was considered the 4th major sport because he thought more people attended/ followed other sports like golf and tennis over hockey. This prompted an argument between DME and a girl that was sitting near us about the merits and love of hockey. Well, I decided to look it up, what are the most popular sports in America. Do Americans really like golf and tennis or maybe even NASCAR over hockey?

Rank- League- Average Attendance Per Game of League
1) NASCAR- 200,000 - 300,000
2) NFL- 67,738
3) FBS- 46,971
4) MLB- 32,717
5) MLS- 16,464
6) NBA- 17,394
7) NHL- 17, 265
8) AFL- 12,415
9) WNBA- 8,039
10) NCAAB- 5,277

However, fan attendance doesn't tell the entire story. 1) A lot of fan will watch games on TV, so it's entirely possible that the sport may have a high attendance but low popularity elsewhere- or vice versa 2) Some sports (i.e. the new Cowboys Stadium) may just have bigger arenas than other sports

Luckily, a Harris Poll helps to tell the entire story. They polled people to see what there favorite sports to help determine what the most popular sports in America are (click to enlarge):



Therefore, the most popular sports in America looks a bit different than attendance numbers:

1) NFL
2) MLB
3) FBS
4) NASCAR
5) NHL
6) NBA
6) NCAAB
6) PGA
9) MLS
9) PBA
9) Horse Racing

So now back to the original argument that sparked this post: DME was wrong about the immense popularity of hockey in America. Hockey is MUCH more popular than either golf or tennis and absolutely should be considered one of the top 4 in America.

Sources:
-Harris Poll
-Sports Attendance
-NAASCAR info