Baseball participation in U.S. at highest recorded level since 2008

Baseball participation is at nearly 16.7 million in the U.S., the highest officially recorded level for the sport since the Sports & Fitness Industry Association first began tracking participation in 2008, according to SFIA’s Topline Participation Report for 2023. The report, released by SFIA on Feb. 27 also notes that casual participation in baseball has reached an all-time high of more than 8.9 million participants. That represents an 108% increase from 2014, the year prior to the launch of Play Ball, MLB’s overarching youth sports initiative. Play Ball events throughout the year will be held by all 30 MLB clubs and all 120 MiLB clubs.

Other notes from the SFIA report include:

• Softball participation grew by nearly 500,000, a 6% year-over-year increase.
• Combined, baseball and softball saw a larger percentage increase of participation (+7.6%) than basketball (+5.6%) and football (+3.6%).
• Combined participation in baseball and softball is at approximately 25.3 million, which is the highest level since 2018.