{"id":71062,"date":"2025-03-13T08:15:21","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T14:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportstravelmagazine.com\/?p=71062"},"modified":"2025-03-13T08:35:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T14:35:37","slug":"pickleball-flag-wrestling-and-the-sports-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportstravelmagazine.com\/pickleball-flag-wrestling-and-the-sports-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Pickleball, Flag Football, Wrestling and the Sports on the Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Pickleball, Flag, Wrestling and the Sports on the Rise\" src=\"https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/sportstravel-podcast\/pickleball-flag-wrestling-and-the-sports-on-the-ri\/embed?style=cover\" width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nFor decades, the <a href=\"https:\/\/sfia.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sports &amp; Fitness Industry Association<\/a> has been polling Americans about their participation levels in more than 100 sports and activities. The data, released annually in their Topline Participation Report, breaks those numbers down by individual sports and activities, types of sports like water sports, winter sports or racquet sports, and also by gender, age and income levels. The result is an incredibly comprehensive look at who is playing what and what the barriers might be for others based on their gender, age and income levels among other factors. Their latest report, whose research was led by senior director and head of research<strong> Alex Kerman<\/strong> \u2014 our guest on this episode \u2014 is filled with interesting data.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<div class=\"article_sidebar\">\n<p><b>Listen to More<\/b><br \/>\nTo listen to more episodes of the SportsTravel Podcast, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportstravelmagazine.com\/sports-podcast-news-insight-analysis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>As far as the headlines go, the great news is that people are moving more. For the first time, the report concluded that over 80 percent of Americans are active in something, which means they participate in one of those sports or activities at least once last year. And what are they playing? Well, once again pickleball is by far the fastest-growing sport, at least by percentage of new people reporting that they play. Pickleball, however, isn\u2019t the only success story. Team sports in general are trending upward, including many that were on the program at the last Olympic Games or that will make their debut at the 2028 Olympic Games, like flag football, which was another winner. In this conversation, we break down the numbers from this fascinating report, talk about why the growth sports are growing and what the next big thing may be in the years to come.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>This episode is sponsored by:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.teamsconference.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-69314 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/media.sportstravelmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/10020202\/T25_logo-USOPC-1024x158.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"99\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.sportstravelmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/10020202\/T25_logo-USOPC-1024x158.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.sportstravelmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/10020202\/T25_logo-USOPC-300x46.jpg 300w, https:\/\/media.sportstravelmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/10020202\/T25_logo-USOPC-768x119.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.sportstravelmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/10020202\/T25_logo-USOPC-1536x238.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/media.sportstravelmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/10020202\/T25_logo-USOPC-2048x317.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For decades, the Sports &amp; Fitness Industry Association has been polling Americans about their participation levels in more than 100 sports and activities. The data, released annually in their Topline Participation Report, breaks those numbers down by individual sports and activities, types of sports like water sports, winter sports or racquet sports, and also by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":71064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3044,3581,4337,3059],"tags":[16518,3739],"class_list":["post-71062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","category-pickleball","category-podcasts","category-wrestling","tag-laura-gainor","tag-pickleball"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/sportstravelmagazine.com\/pickleball-flag-wrestling-and-the-sports-on-the-rise\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Pickleball, 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