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≡ WILD NGB MEMBER STATS ≡
When Americans think about the U.S. Olympic Team, naturally sports like track & field and swimming – where the U.S. wins a lot of medals – come to mind right away, and some of the team sports where the U.S. has been dominant, like basketball.
But diversity, equity and inclusion reports submitted to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and published annually since 2013 show that U.S. national federations in hugely-popular sports such as soccer, have no members at all (that’s right, none!).
That’s because their “licensed players” are all part of other organizations, such as those in youth soccer, adult clubs, school teams from middle schools all the way up to the NCAA level, professional leagues and so on. This is the case with the NGB financial leader, the U.S. Soccer Federation, which has many of these organizations associated with it, but not the players, of which it estimates there are 4.2 million in the country.
But there are U.S. National Governing Bodies who do have direct memberships and which oversee competitions in the country, and the 2024 “Demographic Data Report” for each NGB offers pages of details, including membership and the number of athletes on the “National Team” as defined by the NGB. The 2024 statistical leaders, ranked by number of members (with the number of national team athletes – as listed by the NGB – added at the end):
● 1,000,000: USA Softball (128 national team members)
● 700,943: US Tennis Association (29)
● 476,185: USA Volleyball (263)
● 413,729: USA Swimming (108 in 2023)
● 344,500: USA Wrestling (139)
● 301,861: USA Triathlon (18)
● 195,040: USA Gymnastics in 2023 (142)
● 129,178: USA Track & Field (286)
● 82,633: USA Rugby (76)
● 82,523: U.S. Equestrian Federation (76)
/10/
● 78,909: US Rowing (51)
● 65,715: USA Boxing (13)
● 42,000: USA Water Polo (34)
● 41,158: USA Fencing (26)
● 40,638: USA Cycling (99)
● 32,460: USA Archery (39)
● 27,583: USA Field Hockey (80)
● 20,522: USA Weightlifting (44)
● 16,392: US Squash (9)
● 14,894: American Canoe Association (43)
/20/
● 14,344: USA Judo (22)
● 14,000: USA Table Tennis (8)
● 11,540: USA Taekwondo (19)
● 6,390: USA Diving (107)
● 5,842: USA Artistic Swimming (14)
● 5,008: USA Shooting (44)
● 3,364: USA Badminton (0)
● 2,009: US Sailing (6)
● 882: USA Team Handball (67)
● 126: USA Pentathlon (8)
/30/
● 0: USA Baseball (166)
● 0: USA Basketball (63)
● 0: USA Climbing (79)
● 0: USA Golf (4)
● 0: USA Skateboarding (45)
● 0: U.S. Soccer (113)
● 0: USA Surfing (7)
/37/
USA Gymnastics did not enter the number of members in its 2024 report, so the 2023 number is shown; the number of national team members for USA Swimming was an obvious typographical error, so the 2023 total is shown.
As for the winter NGBs, one is far ahead of the rest:
● 672,690: USA Hockey (138)
● 245,986: US Figure Skating (411)
● 39,246: US Ski & Snowboard (238)
● 21,000: USA Curling (29)
● 1,968: US Speedskating (29)
/5/
● 1,432: USA Biathlon (12)
● 383: USA Luge (19)
● 334: USA Bobsled & Skeleton (34)
● 0: USA Ski Mountaineering (16)
/9/
The US Figure Skating report showed an incorrect 60,355 members in 2024, but the federation’s own annual report showed a record of 245,986 in 2023-24.
Just for fun, let’s look at the top NGBs and their membership numbers from five years ago, in 2019, before the pandemic. The eight Olympic NGBs now with 100,000 or more members had, pre-pandemic:
● 620,292: US Tennis Association (+80,651)
● 411,675: USA Swimming (+2,054)
● 385,758: USA Volleyball (+90,427)
● 252,419: USA Wrestling for 2018-19 (+92,081)
● 129,494: USA Triathlon (+98,633)
● 123,956: USA Gymnastics (+71,084)
● 123,829: USA Track & Field (+5,349)
● 77,358: USA Softball (+922,642)
USA Softball’s membership exploded during the pandemic, reporting 563,808 in 2020, then was shown as 104,686 in 2021, 132,639 in 2022 and then one million in 2023 and 2024; the federation states that it has more than 120,000 teams registered in youth and adult leagues for men and women.
Among the winter NGBs, USA Hockey had 636,753 members in 2019 vs. 672,690 now (+35,937); US Figure Skating showed 203,023 members in 2019 and has reached 245,986 in 2024, for a gain of 42,963.
If you’re a fan of diversity, you won’t find a wider set of disparities between sports than in the membership reports. None give a complete picture of the state of their sports in the U.S., since they do not include the enormous participation in high school, NCAA or other sports-sponsoring organizations, such as the enormous soccer infrastructure in the country.
But in the U.S.’s top Olympic medal-producing sports, it is remarkable that swimming and track & field rank fourth and eighth among the top membership NGBs in the U.S.
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