Fastest Growing Sports in the World
Sport is very important part of our lives, whether you love sport or hate it, you may just find a new hobby after reviewing some of these fastest growing sports! Some of these “sports” you may have never heard of before. Here’s some of the oddest and fastest growing sports in the world.
The Fastest Growing Sports are..
Padel Tennis
Padel is a cross between real tennis, regular tennis, squash and ping pong. The racquets are solid and stringless and you can play it to a high standard well into your old age because the sport is all about strategy and guile but muscle and smashing the ball as hard as you can works too!
It’s massive in Spain where it’s estimated that padel is played by between six to 10 million Spaniards, compared to around 200,000 who actively play tennis. The The massive growth of Padel continues outside of spain where it’s the fastest growing sports in England and Scandinavia and growing fast in the USA too.
This great sport even has it’s own World Padel Tour
Standup Paddleboarding
Most people will heard of Stand Up Paddleboarding or SUP by now and if not you mustn’t live too close to water! Standup Paddleboarding is one of the fastest growing sports in the world and the most versatile of all board sports. SUP’s can be used in flat water, rivers and rapids, touring, racing and surfing. And more recently there is SUP fishing and even SUP yoga!
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A relatively new sport that has burst onto the global scene is that of mixed martial arts. The UFC has grown from strength to strength over the last decade producing some of the best fighters ever. MMA has become one of the most fastest growing sports in America, with more and more youngster taking up the sport from an early age. With the likes of Conor McGregor breaking multiple attendance records and pay-per-view records alike, it is evident how popular the sport has become. In 2016, the UFC was bought for $4bn which was the biggest sale in the history of sports. With the success of the UFC, many other organisations are also growing, such as Bellator, One Championship and more. Many are instrumental in the growth because of the part they play in bringing the young kids in from grass routes and training them up to be fighting predators.
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Adventure Racing
Adventure racing (also called expedition racing) is typically a multi-disciplinary team sport involving navigation over an unmarked wilderness course with races extending anywhere from two hours up to two weeks in length. The principle disciplines in adventure racing include trekking, mountain biking, and paddling although races can incorporate a multitude of other disciplines including climbing, abseiling, horse riding, skiing and white water rafting. The sport is continuing to grow year by year, more and more people are keen to get out and get fit. In the last 3 years, over 1 million now compete in adventure races across America with a 20% increase on previous years.
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E-Sports
The short history of eSports has been an amazing story, it has seen a stratospheric has rise in popularity of the last decade and 2020 will see that continue. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, sports fans are looking for something to fill the void, eSports has stepped into the breach helping it turn into a billion dollar a year industry. In 2019 the total audience size grew to 380 million and in 2019 it looks like that figure was over 450 million! Goldman Sachs expects that eSports will have roughly the same viewership levels by 2022 as the NFL.
Competitive gaming has also had a huge boost in viewing figures and also revenue jumps of late. Some of the biggest eSporting events such as League of Legends and Call of Duty have massive prize pots and according to statista, it is estimated that the e-Sports industry will be valued at $1.5 billion in the coming years. It’s frightening how quick and global the industry has become, yet it is no surprise since we are in the forever rise of the digital age!
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Drone Racing
Piloting your drone aircraft through an intricate, Star Wars-like obstacle course or ramming an enemy to the ground in a dogfight—sounds slightly like science fiction, doesn’t it? It’s not. In fact, both sports already exist. Each drone is equipped with a camera that streams images in real time to first person view (FPV) goggles worn by the pilots. The pilot literally feels like he or she is sitting on the nose of the drone, as it flies around courses in venues like outdoor stadiums, factory buildings or tents. Pricewaterhouse Coopers forecast that the world drone market will be worth nearly $127 billion by 2020. So if you want to get in on the action a beginners kit including goggles and starter drone would cost you around $300 and more advanced kits will cost you over $1,000. Expensive but fun!
Pickleball
Pickleball is a paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong using a paddle and plastic ball with holes. It is a game that is appropriate for players of all ages and skill levels. Pickleball rules are so similar to ping-pong, it can be easy for practically anyone to learn how to play the game. Whether you’re a beginner who just wants to learn a new sport for fun, or you’re a seasoned player who craves the thrill of more competitive play, pickleball offers something for everyone. So if you have never heard of it and want to know more about it, check out the video above!
The sport is now massive in the US, between 2018 and 2021, USA Pickleball membership nearly doubled and the organization estimates that 4.8 million Americans now play the sport. And if that’s not enough, NFL legend and GOAT Tom Brady along with former world No.1 tennis player Kim Clijsters, has joined an group which has bought an expansion team for the 2023 Major League Pickleball (MLP) season!
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Rugby
Rugby Union is a new addition to the list and main because of it’s massive growth in the USA but also in Japan (and some other Asian countries) and Africa. The sport has grown exponentially in fanbase and the 2019 Rugby World Cup really spurred this on. the RWC saw an increase of 18% from 344 million in 2018 to 405 million in 2019. This is an incredible growth of over 60 million fans from one year to another. The USA now have top tier rugby competition called the Major League Rugby which is expanding fast helping to drive the sport to new levels in North America
In terms of participation the game has grown massively too, in both the men’s and woman’s game. World Rugby has an ambitious plan to ambition to increase the total global playing population to over 10 million, and those playing regularly in active teams to over 6m by 2025.
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