Baseball Football Basketball and Other Popular Sports - Basketball

Basketball is a highly popular activity in the United States. It was the most popular participatory team sport in 2003, according to the SGMA (see Table 5.3), and the second most popular spectator sport according to a Gallup poll conducted in December 2003. That poll found that 14% of Americans ranked basketball as their favorite sport to watch. (See Figure 5.1.)

Basketball players were also among the most popular athletes in the United States. According to a 2004 Harris poll by Humphrey Taylor, retired star Michael Jordan was the most popular athlete in America, a position he had held in every Harris poll conducted on the subject since 1993. Other basketball stars on the list included Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, and Allen Iverson.

According to the SGMA, a decline in basketball participation started in the late 1990s and continued into 2003, with the number playing the sport at least once during the year dropping to 35.4 million. (See Table 1.6 in Chapter 1.) There were increasing numbers of female players, however, especially at the high school level. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, in the 2002–03 school year there were 457,165 female participants, compared to 540,874 male ones. Basketball was the most popular high school sport for girls and the second most popular sport for high school boys after football.