i need to know which sport[such as soccer,auto racing etc.]
draws the most "live"[i.e
actually in arenas,stadiums or whatever}spectators.
A.in U.S.A.?
B. worldwide?
thanks

According to this October 28, 2000 article by CBS Marketwatch's John
F. Thorsberg, baseball draws the most live fans in terms of total
attendance. In fact in 1999-2000, baseball drew nearly as many fans as
football and basketball.
For the complete statistics, visit:
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/page.cms?featureId=73

Of course, these statistics are skewed toward baseball because it has
so many teams, and each team plays a lot of games per year.  Other
sports such as auto racing and football actually draw much larger
average crowds per event. For more information, view this site which
quotes statistics credited to Sports, the Boston Globe, Motorsports,
and the Goodyear Annual Attendance Report:
http://www.motorsports2000.net/average.htm

According to a transcript of Sports Talk with Fred Bowen (Friday,
October 20, 2000 at 4 p.m. EDT) that appears on the web site of the
Washington Post:
"Worldwide, soccer appear to be the most heavily attended sport."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/kids/speakup/00/kids1020.htm

According an Indiana University press release entitled, "Conference on
economic impact of motor sports features CART and IRL racing's top
executives," (April 18, 2000)  Andrew Craig, chairman and CEO of
Championship Auto Racing Teams, claimed that "auto racing is the
second most popular sport worldwide after soccer, in terms of
spectator attendance and television viewership."
http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/ocm/releases/racecon.htm

Google search terms: sports attendance "million spectators"
://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=sports%20attendance%20%22million%20spectators%22

Additional Google search terms: most popular sport worldwide
attendance
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=googlet&q=most+popular+sport+worldwide+attendance&btnG=Google+Search

I hope this helps. Good luck.

---

Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 18 May 2002 19:31 PDT

I meant to say that "baseball drew nearly as many fans as
football and basketball COMBINED." Sorry about that.

Have a look at:

http://www.yahooligans.com/content/ka/almanac/sports/spo00009.html

for some of the info you're looking for.

Hi!

I just wanted to add that the most popular participation sport
world-wide is Volleyball according to FIVB, the Volleyball
international governing body.
http://www.johann-sandra.com/popularindex.htm
http://www.fivb.ch

1 in 6 people in the world play.  This includes backyard volleyball. 
Surprisingly, there is little or no advertising associated with
Volleyball--the only "trademarks" you will find are manufacturer names
on the balls and net systems!  As you can probably tell from the lack
of TV coverage, Volleyball is under-represented in that medium, at
least in America.  Outdoor/Beach tournaments draw many competitors and
spectators, and since it's one of the few sports where teams take
turns playing, the competitors rejuvinate and spectate each other at
the same time.

I hope this is helpful if you count live participants as live
spectators, or if you need this information for advertising purposes.

Thanks,

adroit-ga

Actually that is not quite true.

At least depending on how you look at "popularity".  I do not have
exact statistics for how many people PLAY soccer around the world (so
i concede that it is possible that volleyball might be played by more
players), but 1 in 3 people around the world watch the world cup
finals (almost 2 billion in 2002), which makes soccer the most popular
sport to support around the world.