The Sports and Fitness Industry Association’s annual participation report offers encouragement for anyone decrying physical inactivity in America.

For the first time since the industry began its annual study, participation rates across physical activities reached 80%, rising from 242 million in 2023 to 247.1 million Americans who said they participated in at least one physical activity in 2024.

Core or active participation — definitions for these vary by activity — was at 170 million, which is also a new high and an increase from 165 million. The core participation rate of 55.3% was the highest in five years.

Conversely, the number of inactive Americans declined from 64.9 million to 61.8 million (still 20% of the U.S. population). The report notes how much that skews by income: Lower income levels (under $25,000) had an inactivity level roughly 3x that of the highest income levels ($100,000+).

A breakdown by sport

Pickleball continued its accelerated growth, with 19.8 million participants across the U.S. in 2024, an astounding 45.8% increase from 2023 and the fourth consecutive year it achieved the highest growth rate. Overall, racquet sports (+9.4%) are following pickleball’s trajectory. With an 8% growth rate, tennis was the leader outside of pickleball.

Among team sports (+8.1%), 20 of 24 sports showed increased participation, with wrestling pacing the group at a healthy 8.6% increase. Also on the rise were basketball, flag football, tackle football, gymnastics and softball (all growing more than 7%).

Running /jogging/hiking exceeded 50 million participants for the first time since 2020, and treadmill activities surpassed pre-pandemic levels for the first time. Class-based exercises all saw healthy increases, especially aquatics, boot camps, cardio kickboxing and cross-training workouts.

Snowboarding paced winter sports with a 9.3% participation increase, while stand-up paddleboarding has the biggest increase among aquatic sports at 6.6%.