Sports in America Survey

The annual Sporting Goods Manufacturers survey was just released and profiled on CNBC. Here were some of the more interesting findings:

- The fastest growing activity in the country is Pilates. With 8.6 million Americans participating in ’09, it’s up 456 percent since 2000

- The activity most Americans participate in is walking (110 million) followed by bowling (57.3 million). Bowling participation is up 10 percent in the last nine years

- About 43 million Americans said they played billiards last year, down 12.3 percent from those that played just a year before

- At the gym, the elliptical machine is the star, as use has increased by 260 percent over the last nine years

- Baseball is the third most popular team sport in the US, behind basketball and soccer, with 13.7 million players, but participation continues to fall. Almost 16 million people played the sport in 2000

- Lacrosse continues its impressive incline. In 2000, there were 518,000 lacrosse players. Today, that participation is up 131 percent to almost 1.2 million people

- Last year’s star of the survey, Ultimate Frisbee, which had grown by 800,000 participants, steadied a bit this year as the number of people playing dropped to 4.4 percent, a 10 percent decrease from ’08

From: http://www.cnbc.com/id/36103179