When I was reading the papers the other day I noticed this surprising bit of information about sports. The 2 most popular outdoor sports are not football, baseball, or soccer, and obviously it’s not basketball, either since those events are held mainly indoors.

No it is not what you are thinking. Not baseball or football. Stats about how many people attend events and how many are directly involved are part of how they measure this popularity. This is ONLY for sports that happen entirely outdoors.

The first one of the 2 most popular outdoor activities or sports watching birds. That is right – birdwatching. Birdwatching as a sport is a little like bass fishing tournaments, humans are competing with nature, not teams against teams. Birding is similar to fishing as a sport because there are bird spotting and bird identification competitions just as there are fishing tournaments. Although the monetary scale for prizes is no where near that of Bass Fishing!

You would be amazed at how many people are birding these days and it is a low-cost hobby or sport to participate in. One last thing I want to mention about the expenses involved in this sport is that many birders invest in a quality pair of bird binoculars to get the most out of their birdwatching trips. If you are going to do serious fishing, you will spend about the same amount.

Honest, the second most popular sport is NASCAR Racing.No wonder NASCAR is listed as one of the top two outdoor sports activities. looking at the stats I can see how they got to that conclusion. What makes this such an incredibly popular sport is that there are hundreds of thousands of fans who go long distances to attend NASCAR events. Almost every weekend there is something related to NASCAR going on all around the country.

It would take 5 or 6 sold out games at Fenway Park to equal the attendance of one popular NASCAR event. What makes this so popular? There are lots of NASCAR events all over the country and thousands of fans go to NASCAR events. They did the stats. That is how they came up with birdwatching and NASCAR as the top two outdoor sports

How about you? Did you guess correctly? Did you know the two most popular outdoor sports in America are birdwatching and NASCAR racing?

NASCAR racing is one of Daniel’s interests so you can see some interesting articles and pick up schedules and news at his site. You just might be surprised to discover other interesting facts there too. Like Birdwatching?