In this article, we are going to discuss the 15 hardest sports in the world ranked. You can skip our detailed analysis of the history of sports, the world’s #1 sport, the hardest sport in Asia, sports sponsorships and endorsements, disruptions and innovations in the sports market, the future of ESPN and the future outlook of sports streaming, and go directly to 5 Hardest Sports in the World Ranked.
While the majority of sports played today have been created/developed in the 19th and 20th centuries, our ancestors started competing against each other in primitive sports as a means of pastime and entertainment in ancient times. In the beginning, sports often involved training for war or training as a hunter, which explains why so many early games involved the throwing of spears, stakes, and rocks, and sparring one-on-one with opponents.
As time went on, sporting competitions became more organized and the best example of this revolution in organized sports occurred in ancient Greece, where the first Olympic games took place in 760 BC. Though sports are an excellent source of entertainment for their viewers worldwide, many of them are a dangerous affair for the athletes involved. For this reason, we have compiled a List of the Hardest Sports in the World.
World’s No. 1 Sport:
Soccer is the No. 1 sport in the world, in terms of popularity, with around 3.5 billion fans worldwide and players in almost every country of the world. The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is currently made up of 205 member associations, with over 300,000 clubs and 240 million registered players.
FIFA functions as a non-profit organization and most of its revenue is derived from TV broadcasting rights, advertisements for the World Cup, and the sale of licensing rights. FIFA reported a revenue of $7.568 billion for the 2019-22 period, representing a cycle-on-cycle increase of 18%, compared to $6.421 billion for the 2015-18 period. An estimated 1.5 billion people around the world watched the pulsating Final between Argentina and France, while another 88,966 spectators were packed inside the Lusail Stadium.
Soccer is also one of the toughest sports in the world, hence it is included in our ranking of hardest sports in the world. Another sport becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. is pickleball. If you wish to read more about it, please refer to our article Top 15 Pickleball Companies and Brands.
Hardest Sport in Asia:
If you are from outside of Southeast Asia, you are probably not familiar with the sport called ‘Sepak Takraw’, a sport that is a combination of volleyball, badminton and soccer. Astonishingly visceral and explosive, sepak takraw or kick volleyball, ranks among the toughest sports in the world demanding lightning reflexes, precise control and fearless, gravity-defying leaps.
Since the sport is not an Olympic event, it finds its biggest stage at the Asian Games, where Thailand has been the dominant country by a margin.
Sports Sponsorships and Endorsements:
Sports have become a gigantic industry generating hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue every year, and a large part of this revenue is contributed by sponsorship deals and endorsements. While companies generally sponsor entire teams and events, they can also pay individual athletes to advocate for their brands.
A big example of this is the symbiotic partnership between NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) and the basketball legend Michael Jordan. NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) welcomed the legendary Chicago Bulls shooting guard into the family back in 1984, with an upfront commitment of $250,000 and Jordan’s very own signature shoe line. During the 2022 financial year, the Air Jordan brand by NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) generated a revenue of $5.1 billion, with Jordan himself reportedly pocketing around 5%, or around $256.1 million – that’s double his entire NBA career earnings in just a single year. Michael Jordan has earned an estimated $1.3 billion from his deal with NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) and the two partners even signed a lifetime deal back in 2020.
The European champion and Premier League golden boot winner, Erling Haaland, also extended his sponsorship deal with NIKE, Inc. (NYSE:NKE) in March 2023, worth an estimated $24 million.
Innovations and Disruptions in the Sports Market:
Live sporting events are a special type of content that attracts a lot of viewers and subscribers. Every year, Fox Corporation (NASDAQ:FOX), CBS and NBC – owned by Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), collectively pay the NFL $3 billion for the rights to broadcast the league’s games. In 2021, the NFL signed an 11 year media rights deal, worth an estimated $110 billion, with CBS, Fox Corporation (NASDAQ:FOX), NBC, ESPN, and Amazon.com,Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). The deal will commence in 2023.
After the deal, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) will be able to live-stream Thursday Night Football via their Amazon Prime Video app. This adds to Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) live portfolio, including Premier League soccer in the U.K. and ATP Tour tennis.
The shift to streaming sports via OTT platforms is becoming increasingly apparent, particularly with the recent news of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Major League Soccer (MLS) signing a 10 year global streaming rights deal, worth $2.5 billion. It’s a hybrid model – the coming together of a rights-holder-branded direct-to-consumer (D2C) service.
Lionel Messi recently announced that he has found a new home and signed a deal with Inter Miami in the MLS, which has come as a big win for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Having arguably the best player in the game instantly makes the MLS Season Pass subscription, available through Apple TV Plus – the streaming platform of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) – much more appealing, especially for the global audience that might otherwise be more interested in European soccer.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS), and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) etc. have rewritten the agenda for video on demand entertainment, so it’s natural that live sports fans now also expect the same level of consistency in streaming delivery. D2C platforms have responded to this challenge, and they are gaining traction.
The Future of ESPN:
ESPN is an American multinational sports media conglomerate owned majorly by The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS). ESPN’s place in a future streaming-dominated sports world could be as an aggregator, rather than a broadcaster. The network is considering adding links to its website and app that would direct users to live sports streaming broadcasts, including the ones that don’t appear on ESPN. A hub for sports streaming could address consumer frustration of having to figure out where to watch live sports.
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) also launched a sports streaming platform ESPN+ in 2018, believing that a shift from ESPN’s traditional cable model to streaming is inevitable for the network.
Future Outlook of Sports Streaming:
The global sports market grew from $486.61 billion in 2022, to $512.14 billion in 2023, with a CAGR of 5.2%, thus indicating the industry’s massive economic potential.
While the big four U.S. professional leagues appear to be more advanced than their European counterparts in exploring the potential of D2C platforms, the next 10 years may tell a different story. According to a report by Ampere Analysis, OTT platforms will spend over $8 billion on sports rights in 2023, to reach 21% of global sports rights investment, up from 13% in 2022.
The success and failure of any D2C platform lies in addressing many live streaming issues, including scalability, personalization, latency, picture quality, monetization etc. Until these issues are properly addressed, the current importance of linear media rights revenue in professional sports economics means that we are still away from reaching a point where D2C services are used as the primary distribution platforms by most sports-rights holders.
With that said, let's move on to the list of the most demanding sports in the world.
15 Hardest Sports in the World Ranked
Pixabay/Public Domain
Methodology:
To collect data for this article, we have referred to the following sources: ESPN, SportyTell, Sports Virsa and Bscholar, and looked for rankings of the hardest sports in the world. Then we calculated the weighted average for each sport according to its position in the above-mentioned sources and ranked it accordingly in our list. We assigned the highest weightage (0.4 out of 1) to the ESPN's index's rankings, and a weight of 0.2 each to SportyTell, Sports Visa and Bscholar's indexes. There's variation in weights for sports we found on multiple of these indexes but not all four of them.
Swimming may be a pleasant afternoon activity for some people, while others see it as a competitive sport that requires immense strength and endurance. However, speed and strength can only get an athlete so far. Beyond this, they must rely on strong technique to get them through the race. Every stroke in a race matters and swimmers must constantly run through drills during practice to perfect their strokes.
Several multinational companies, such as Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) and Unilever PLC (NYSE:UL) have signed sponsorship deals with professional swimmers. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) signed a yearly sponsorship deal worth $0.5 million with American swimmer Katie Ledecky in January 2022. Another athlete officially sponsored by Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is the British swimmer Adam Peaty.
14. Figure Skating
Weighted Average Score: 13.6
The main reason why figure skating is such a uniquely demanding sport is that it is simultaneously an athletic and artistic form of creative expression. Both sport and art, athletic display and dance, figure skaters must learn two very different ways of relating to the discipline and then integrate it all seamlessly into one beautiful program.
United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:UAL) has partnered with the U.S. Olympic Committee for over 35 years and is an official sponsor of the U.S. Figure Skating Team. An official licensee of the team is NBC Sports, owned by the Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA).
13. Bull Riding
Weighted Average Score: 12.2
Straddled atop a 2,000 pound bucking bull is the ideal place to appreciate the perils of bull riding. The bulls used in competitive bull riding are selectively bred for a predisposition to buck, which means they are especially sensitive to any negative stimulus, such as the riders they are trying to buck off. With an estimated rate of injury of 1 every 15 rides, bull riding is a worthy inclusion in our Ranking of the Toughest Sports in the World.
Monster Energy, owned by the Monster Beverage Corporation (NASDAQ:MNST) has been an official sponsor of Professional Bull Riders (PBR) riders and events since 2011. PBR boasts an annual attendance of 3 million fans, and the sport is available in more than 400 million homes on television.
12. Cross-Country Running
Weighted Average Score: 10.5
Cross-country athletes are often less visible than other athletes, but cross-country running is definitely one of the hardest sports physically and mentally and requires a lot of dedication and discipline. Cross-country runners are a unique breed who push themselves against their limits. They run during rain or under scorching sun and don’t let their pain get the best of them.
The leading fitness technology company Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN) signed a two-year deal in 2021, to become the title sponsor of the Garmin RunningLane Cross Country Championships.
11. Rugby
Weighted Average Score: 9.4
Rugby has been called ‘a thug’s game played by gentlemen’ and on the surface, that description seems to fit the sport. Rugby combines athleticism with toughness and is played without any protective gear. Athletes must exhibit strength, endurance and speed, and with all the tackling and hitting going on, it comes as no surprise that rugby is a part of our Rankings of the World’s Hardest Sports. Each player performs an average of 20 to 40 tackles per match, and an estimated 1 in every 4 players get injured during the season.
The BT Group has one season remaining on a three-year deal worth around $140 million with Premiership Rugby. BT Sport will rebrand as TNT Sport and show Premiership and European rugby from next season, following the merger between BT Group and Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD).
10. Soccer
Weighted Average Score: 9.2
Soccer requires an intense amount of stamina, as players usually have to run between 7-10 miles per game. This includes sprinting, sliding, tackling, jumping and the sport also demands keen mental awareness, as players need to continuously read the game as it goes on. Creativity and technique also play a key role in the most popular sport in the world, as a single moment of magic could be enough to make the difference between total ecstasy and despair, for millions.
Soccer is also one of the strongest sports in the world financially and has witnessed some juggernaut deals for sponsorships and TV rights. In May 2021, the Premier League confirmed that it would extend its television deal worth approximately $7 billion, until the end of the 2024-25 campaign. Sky Sports, owned by the Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), TNT Sports, owned by Warner Bros., Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD), and Amazon Prime, owned by Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) are some of the companies that acquired the said TV rights. The Premier League clubs also spent a total of $966 million on transfer fees last season.
9. Water Polo
Weighted Average Score: 9.2
Next up on our List of Hardest Sports in the World is the high-intensity Olympic sport of water polo. Played in a deep pool of at least 1.8 meters, the water sport is highly regarded in terms of physicality, as there is a lot of kicking and grabbing going on under the surface, other than the throwing and catching happening above it. The speed and durability required by players, as well as the necessity to avoid drowning without being allowed to touch the ground, make water polo one of the Top 10 Hardest Sports in the World.
The U.S. Water Polo team has a number of partners and sponsors, including KAP7 and Anti Wave etc.
8. Basketball
Weighted Average Score: 8.1
Basketball is hard to play because it requires a high level of physical fitness, especially with all the non-stop running that players do up and down the court. Also, basketball skills take a lot of time to master and performing certain actions in the game needs a very high level of accuracy, agility, teamwork and body coordination.
Basketball is also the hardest sport to go pro in. Unless you’re above 6 foot 3 inches, you have a very low chance of making it big. Only about 0.008% of high school basketball players turn pro.
The NBA currently makes $2.66 billion a year from The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) and Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) under its current deal, which will expire following the 2024-25 season. It’s aiming to get twice as much after.
7. Wrestling
Weighted Average Score: 6.6
Another clear contender in our list of toughest sports in the world, wrestling requires a combination of physical and mental determination, endurance, speed and tactfulness. The best wrestlers train for hours on end in gymnasiums until they’re ready to compete. Some wrestlers also need to cut weight before their matches to meet their required weight class, and many times, this happens through dehydration or consuming a low-calorie diet.
In April 2023, Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EDR), the parent company of UFC, announced a deal to acquire World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc (NYSE:WWE) and form a new public company. The deal values UFC at $12.1 billion and World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc (NYSE:WWE) at $9.3 billion. Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EDR) will hold a 51% controlling share in the new company, while shareholders of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc (NYSE:WWE) will hold a 49% stake.
6. Motocross
Weighted Average Score: 5.5
Initially developed from motorcycle trials, motocross is a sport that requires a great amount of skill. Riders perform tricks like leaps, ditches and trespassing, while riding on winding, challenging routes across harsh terrain. It is one of the toughest and most physically demanding sports, with high jumps and often risky landings that frequently result in gruesome injuries and accidents.
Monster Energy, owned by the Monster Beverage Corporation (NASDAQ:MNST), recently extended its Supercross title sponsorship until 2025. The Monster Beverage Corporation (NASDAQ:MNST) owned energy drink is already the official energy drink of Pro Motocross and Supercross, and the long-term partnership with Supercross began in 2007.
