“Overall it is great to see participation levels up across the majority of sports and recreational activities we track,” says Nick Rigitano, NSGA director of insights and analysis. “It tells us the opportunities are there for retailers, team dealers and manufacturers in the sporting goods industry to grow their business.”

Some of the key takeaways from NSGA’s 2024 participation report:

• Pickleball’s growth isn’t slowing down as it showed the highest percentage increase year-over-year for the fourth consecutive year. Pickleball was up 54 percent in 2023 vs 2022.
• The gains by pickleball were part of the individual segment seeing increases for five out of the seven sports/activities tracked. Tennis and golf also made gains in participation.
• The team sports segment saw increases for seven of the 11 sports tracked, led by strong increases in soccer (+12 percent), cheerleading (+15 percent) and flag football (+10 percent). Overall, the segment was up 2.2 percent in terms of NSGA’s Total Participation Points (TPP) measurement.
• The personal contact segment (boxing, wrestling, martial arts/MMA/tae kwon do) was a big hit and saw the biggest increase in TPP, up 14 percent versus the prior year.
• The results were mixed within the indoor, outdoor and fitness segments. This led to slight decreases for all three in terms of TPP.

The 2024 Sports Participation in the U.S. report is available on NSGA’s website at research@nsga.org. The report tracks 56 sports and recreational activities and includes snapshots for each, allowing users to see a 10-year participation trend (when available), as well as demographic details regarding age, income and U.S. region. NSGA’s participation research also includes Cross Participation, Lifecycle Demographics and Single-Sport reports. The Total Participation Points (TPP) take into account the reach and depth of participation within a segment.