Basketball ranked as the top team sports activity among Americans over the age of six with over 35.4 million participants, according to SGMA International's Sports Participation Topline Report. That number is twice as many as the second-ranked team sport, outdoor soccer, with 16.1 million. The following presents the top ten team sports in terms of participation for '03 (SGMA International).
METHODOLOGY: In the first week of '04, a questionnaire was sent to 25,000 households from a pre-screened panel of 500,000 households. Only one individual in each household was targeted as a respondent. A total of 15,015 usable questionnaires comprised the final sample, and the weighted data were then projected to the U.S. population of 260,382,000, so each respondent in the study represents 17,341 people (SGMA).
| SGMA'S PARTICIPATION RESULTS FOR '03: TEAM SPORTS |
| RANK | ACTIVITY | PARTICIPANTS (IN MILLIONS) | % +/- |
| 1) | Basketball | 35.4 | -3.1% |
| 2) | Soccer (outdoor) | 16.1 | —— |
| 3) | Softball (regular) | 14.4 | 0.3% |
| 4) | Football (touch) | 14.1 | -5.3% |
| 5) | Volleyball (hard surface) | 11.0 | -6.3% |
| 6) | Baseball | 10.8 | 4.6% |
| 7) | Volleyball (grass) | 7.9 | -7.7% |
| 8) | Volleyball (beach) | 7.4 | -0.8% |
| 9) | Football (tackle) | 5.7 | -0.6% |
| 10) | Soccer (indoor) | 4.5 | —— |
