SILVER SPRING, Md. (BRAIN) – The Sports & Fitness Industry Association this week released its 2015 participation report that ranked sports activities by number of participants. Road bicycling ranked 7th on the survey's top 10 list with 20.4 million core participants in 2014. The study defines a core participant as someone who biked 26 or more times per year. How the SFIA defines regular participants varies by activity.
The SFIA's top 10 core participation activities (by number of participants):
- Walking for fitness (50+ times/year): 76.8 million
- Running/jogging (50+ times/year): 28 million
- Treadmill (50+ times/year): 27.7 million
- Stretching (50+ times/year): 26 million
- Free weights (hand weights) under 15 lbs. (50+ times/year): 24.8 million
- Weight resistance machines (50+ times/year): 21.2 million
- Bicycling (Road/Paved) (26+ times/year): 20.4 million
- Free weights (dumbbells) over 15 lbs. (50+ times/year): 19 million
- Fishing (freshwater/other) (8+ times/year): 17.9 million
- Stationary cycling (recumbent/upright) (50+ times/year): 17.4 million
The SFIA says the report provides granular detail on active Americans — who is doing what and how much they are doing it.
"It should come as no surprise that the fitness lifestyle continues to dominate the list," said Cameron Jacobs, SFIA's research manager. "All of the top 10 activities provide flexibility to the participant in that they can be performed individually, are easily accessible, and determined by the participant's schedule."
The 2015 SFIA Sports, Fitness and Leisure Activities Topline Participation Report, conducted by Sports Marketing Surveys USA, provide overall, casual, and core participation numbers for more than 120 different sports and activities.
Findings are from online interviews carried out during January and February of this year. A total of 10,778 online interviews were carried out with a nationwide sample of individuals and households from a U.S. panel of more than 1 million people operated by Synovate/IPSOS.
The 2015 SFIA Sports, Fitness and Leisure Activities Topline Participation Report is free to current SFIA members and $99 for non-members. More information about the report can be found at sfia.org.
