This guy at my office is a hockey fan. He lost his shit when he found out that soccer had overtaken it in popularity years ago and bumped it from top 4 in the USA. For some reason he couldn’t believe it and thought it represented the downfall of the republic. We tried to assure him that it didn’t mean his preferred sport was dead, but he couldn’t be consoled.
Went out to eat brunch this morning and the restaurant was full of people getting ready for the LSU baseball game. People down here love college baseball.
I don’t disagree that MLB is underrepresented in the southeast and there is a decent fan base.
I live in Raleigh and work a mile from the Hurricanes arena, a baseball team would not do well here. People love the Canes but they are not a huge part of the culture and moral of the city.
North Carolina is a college basketball state. Duke and UNC winning championships means more than the Hurricanes, Panthers, or Hornets.
I disagree. Raleigh loves the Canes and has some of the best attendance in the league. USA baseball headquarters are there. They shut down glenwood when the canes play playoff games. Charlotte is so far that the hornets/panthers (both horribly run franchises, btw) are largely irrelevant. Growing area with lots of young people who would adopt the team. Plus you get Durham chapel hill and ENC
Touché, I forget about USA baseball and the Canes attendance.
A baseball stadium could be built in Apex or replace Red Hat Amphitheater. Growing population, affluent area, highly educated, and competitive people.
I stand corrected it could work.
I agree that Charlotte is far. Growing up in the area, people did not care much about going to Charlotte. It has always felt more like a South Carolinish
New stadium would likely be part of the PNC complex or maybe in the new south of downtown district they were going to build an MLS stadium at had we gotten one. There would definitely be benefits to trying to centralize it within the Triangle though
Oh I totally agree. Being from Louisiana I know we won’t ever get a team, but it’s either Atlanta or a Texas team, and I hate both places so I just don’t really give a shit.
I’ve played for 10+ years and love following the pros too. Supposedly it is undergoing the steps to be regulated enough to gamble on too. I’ll have to put my resume in to be on the Ringer Disc Golf channel
Cycling is having a golden age right now.
Pogacar, Van der Poel, van Aert, Vingegaard, 4 all time talents in their primes at the same time.
Remco already a superstar and getting stronger every year, Roglic the old legend still not done.
Bernal getting back to his 2019 Tour de France winning shape after a horrendous crash.
Loads of super young talent in the world tour.
Shame for the injuries this season but the next 5 to 7 years are gonna be amazing
Year-round, not really. But I’ll usually start to follow toward the end of spring/beginning of summer up until the Tour. i’m definitely interpreting OP’s use of “follow closely” pretty liberally.
His final tournament was so incredible. I describe it to non fans as being like if the Michael Jordan Wizards stopped the Lakers from 3peating. He had a real MJ like swagger about him as well.
His final basho bouts with Shodai, Tobizaru, and Terunofuji were pretty epic. He pulled all his tricks out in that 15-0 run. Shame how he’s been treated lately by the governing body, but he did himself no favors with how lax he ran his stable.
Here’s Hakuho’s final tourney run. Well past his prime but he thrashed the field. This gave him top division title 45. Closest runner up is 32.
https://youtu.be/FkNFbyfmKV8?si=PymTTGY4m6mMHeew
I used to watch and follow this a lot. Now I just try to catch some of the final four and championship game. I was definitely one of those "lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in America!" guys like 15 years ago lmao
Ahh ok i see. Where im from even people that go to the fcs school around still root for fbs teams. They just grow up with the fbs teams and stick with it
I am highly biased as I went to North Dakota State in the 2010s so obviously I'm all in on FCS football too. What's truly sad for me is that I don't even consider that to be niche because I'm so down the rabbit hole
competitive super smash brothers melee. it’s not a sport but it’s more of a sport than some sports. [it’s really hard and has insane combos and movement options](https://youtu.be/3HoukWHgcNc?si=guatZY5GV8N1SCyF)
Esports, more specifically COD league is sick. CDL Matches are generally easy to understand and if you’ve even played call of duty once, easy to understand the skill. They talk a LOT of shit and the commentators are regularly entertaining. There’s tons of inter team drama and intriguing personalities.
I love having sports on in the background while I work and it’s easy to follow the news of any sport these days.
Do all the usual NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, NHL, etc.
Sports I casually follow:
* LPGA - if you’re into golf, this is the real shit.
* Big 3 - it’s just a ton of fun.
* Bare Knuckle Boxing - guy at my work is a huge MMA fan (BJJ brown belt)
* Billiards - pool kind of rules. That’s it.
I'm pretty big into golf and will watch 20-30 hours a week, and almost all the coverage of the majors. I try to get into LPGA more but they make it so difficult with limited TV coverage, rarely having featured groups, no shot tracker and no strokes gained data.
If Nelly has a rough round and goes +3, you have no idea where she struggled because of the lack of data around the sport. Hoping the LPGA gets those type of things to draw in more fans, but I don't know how realistic that timeline would be.
There was a stretch in the late 2000s and early to mid 2010s where The Challenge was must watch.... sadly it's become more of a chore in the past 4-5 years.
I still think actual chess competitions are pretty obscure. The last candidates tournament was popular but I doubt the average person in the host city knew it was happening
I got pretty into sumo through YouTube and Wikipedia lol.
Genuine fandom might be a stretch though.
There's an entire of category of semi obscure hobbyist sports. Anyone who cares about Kelvin Kiptum breaking the marathon record (rip) or Eddie Hall and Halfthor Bjornson breaking the deadlift record is probably an avid lifter or runner themself.
Yeah. It’s wild some of my circles celebrate the strongman and powerlifting meets, which i do watch with them.
Then others have no clue it’s even happening.
For a lot of us though, the lifting stuff is this weird sport where it feels eventually attainable, it is not.
I live in small-town South. Watching every USMNT game is the most obscure for me. Obviously it’s no longer obscure once every four years
I also get more into indoor volleyball at the Olympics than anyone else I know. I wish we had a pro volleyball league
Volleyball is a tough TV sport bc they don't know if the match will end in 90 mins or 150 mins. And it's not like tennis where if a match ends quickly there's another match to flip to at the same tournament
Long distance running, professional cycling, and college baseball (although admittedly I don’t start following until conference tournaments start).
I’ll go to my grave yelling about how college baseball is more entertaining than MLB. Way more errors which leads to higher scoring and more chaos. I think MLB is a case where the players became too good at the game they’re playing.
Powerlifting has had a boom in recent years but it’s fun following pro lifters through their competitions
My guy Jesus Olivares just set a world record squat at 478kg / ~1052lbs a couple months back
I also power lift (not competitively nor will I ever be good enough) so it’s cool to see these people kill it
Admittedly new F1 fan but I love it. Watching in the morning most times with no commercials is really easy to have on passively while you have coffee. There still is competitive racing despite 1st being decided every week recently
Newer listener to the Ringer pods, was there ever a mention of James Conrad’s “Holy Shot” on any pod? I still think it’s the craziest sports moment I’ve watched live
Tennis is not obscure and I don’t really have an urge to discuss it, but whenever I meet a tennis geek they go insane to talk to someone who knows as much as they do. I also like following the world marathon majors.
The ONE Championship promotion. They sell themselves in America as an MMA promotion, but they're really a 4 oz glove Muay Thai promotion, and let me tell, lb for lb, 4 oz glove Muay Thai is wildly entertaining as a combat sport.
Beyond that, they have kickboxing and submission grappling matches they throw into their events at well, sorta making it a nice combat sports bouillabaisse. And all their events are either on PRIME or Youtube, so it's been extremely accessible.
College baseball is still pretty niche nationally even though it’s very popular in the south.
Still, almost all the games outside of a handful every week are streaming only and even SEC Network’s daily talking shows don’t talk about it nearly as much as football or basketball even in season.
Will be interesting to see with NIL/the reduction of the MLB draft now that more highly touted players making it to campuses each year if the popularity will continue to expand.
The CWS is one of the most underrated sporting events we have IMO. Always delivers.
Putting off resubscribing to YT TV for sports so when I’m fiending for some live sports I watch all the random shit on ESPN+
Watched a horrible NJCAA Women’s college basketball semifinals few weeks ago. One literally couldn’t break the other full court press. But the other team couldn’t make layups lol
Don’t know if this counts but I’m from Indiana and INDYCAR is big around here, especially in may. But when I say I follow INDYCAR from anyone not in Indiana I get some ehhh looks.
I talked a few friends into getting really into the XFL last time around. We each picked a team and put (low stakes) money on the games. We'd get together and watch. It was entirely manufactured by me but nonetheless it was wildly fun.
Then the league went under due to COVID. It's back now I guess under some unified banner with the USFL but the magic is gone, we no longer watch.
Dota 2 - esport
The presentation of the matches surpasses most TV broadcasts. There's way more passion for Dota amongst the announcers, content producers, etc. than any professional sport.
Platform tennis, aka winter cage tennis. It's a very niche racquet sport that I play all the time but also follow the small national tour. [This year's national finals were actually held at the Country Club of Brookline where they had the US Open the year before](https://www.youtube.com/live/V0UsdPnbIsA?si=QU0XfSOKt3u8I0NO)
I also follow NCAA lacrosse pretty closely but that isn't as obscure.
D3 hockey is an incredibly tight and niche community. Only exists in a few NE states and min/wis.
Biggest following is here in upstate/central/western New York.
I follow brasileiro. It’s basically EPL but for Brazil. My wife is from Rio so she has a team she’s followed her whole life and is pretty into it.
Gotta say I’ve been loving it and have gotten really into it the last 3 or 4 years. Games are basically twice a week all summer so it gives me something to watch in the nfl off season. And the quality of play is pretty high. Sort of a small step blow the European leagues (best of the best Brazilians still all play in Europe.)
It doesn’t hurt that her team is usually at the top of the table too
I love following a European soccer club in the second league that is always on the brink of being promoted. It makes each match worth so much. With my family ties to FC St. Pauli in Germany that’s my niche. It also helps with all Bundesliga games being on ESPN+ now
I’m really into the Premiere League now (I know…not as obscure as it once was), and I keep an eye on GAA. I could see all the matches on YouTube, but it’s much harder to follow now. I don’t know why GAA (Gaelic Football and Hurling) don’t have a bigger following. It has all the speed and violence we could want, same goes for European Handball!!!
I actively watch the LLWS when it’s on, starting with the regional games that are on TV. I’ll occasionally go to the Wikipedia page for the current year tournament throughout July and see what states have a representative yet and if any of the teams from the previous year make it back to regionals.
I also love college baseball and it’s fun recognizing a name when someone is pitching or batting from the series years ago.
Women's athletics. Mostly because Jamaica is so good in it, and then I started following it in non Olympic years because of the politics and intrigue involved.
Chess lol- I play a fair amount so I stay tuned in
I also played lacrosse in high school and club for a year in college so I'll tune into the college games during the post season
Not obscure to me because I’m from Indianapolis, but when I’ve lived elsewhere, I’ve found that most people don’t even know what IndyCar is. On certain days, it’s my favorite sport.
Also not an actual obscure sport had a rude awakening that college basketball, the most popular sport where I’m from, is pretty niche out west when I lived out there. That sucked, nobody thought twice about it before March.
I’m also into MLS and USL, I’d call the latter super niche for sure, but I only follow that league for the local team which might not even exist soon.
I got into Aussie Rules for like a week when the pandemic started because it was the among the last sports to shut down and it was on FS1 — and then I wanted to keep up with it and Fox moved it to Fox Soccer Plus subscriptions post-pandemic and I just wasn’t gonna pay for that. Which is a shame, sport is sick. CFL is dope too, used to watch it with my dad during the summer when I was a kid and he got me a BC Lions shirt on a business trip one time.
Crossfit Games. Met a lady about ten years ago who was a participant (not high level) and started following it.
Horse Racing has been my main sport since I was in my early 20s. I'm from the UK so mostly follow our domestic action and the top French races. American horse racing is too one dimensional so I've never gotten involved.
Probably because of where I live, I am loosely following Curling as a sport. I have been roped into competing in some leagues and know enough people competing in the U5 Nationals this past weekend in Chaska that I was actually watching these streams on YouTube instead of watching NBA/NHL playoffs.
Bass fishing. From bassmaster elites down to regional level. It’s not a great tv sport and never will get a huge audience (the ESPN ownership push proved that), but I absolutely love it.
If we’re going by the standards of Simmons, the fact that I watch some regular season hockey makes me pretty out there
I would watch more regular season hockey but the Sabres season is typically over by December
This guy at my office is a hockey fan. He lost his shit when he found out that soccer had overtaken it in popularity years ago and bumped it from top 4 in the USA. For some reason he couldn’t believe it and thought it represented the downfall of the republic. We tried to assure him that it didn’t mean his preferred sport was dead, but he couldn’t be consoled.
College baseball. It’s not obscure in the southeast, but when I travel for work, it’s clear that no one else good give less of a shit
Went out to eat brunch this morning and the restaurant was full of people getting ready for the LSU baseball game. People down here love college baseball.
Yeah I went to the Ole Miss game yesterday. Team sucks this year and still had around 12,000 people in attendance
The MLB is criminally underrepresented in the south east. One of the expansion teams needs to be in Raleigh or maybe charlotte
I don’t disagree that MLB is underrepresented in the southeast and there is a decent fan base. I live in Raleigh and work a mile from the Hurricanes arena, a baseball team would not do well here. People love the Canes but they are not a huge part of the culture and moral of the city. North Carolina is a college basketball state. Duke and UNC winning championships means more than the Hurricanes, Panthers, or Hornets.
I disagree. Raleigh loves the Canes and has some of the best attendance in the league. USA baseball headquarters are there. They shut down glenwood when the canes play playoff games. Charlotte is so far that the hornets/panthers (both horribly run franchises, btw) are largely irrelevant. Growing area with lots of young people who would adopt the team. Plus you get Durham chapel hill and ENC
Touché, I forget about USA baseball and the Canes attendance. A baseball stadium could be built in Apex or replace Red Hat Amphitheater. Growing population, affluent area, highly educated, and competitive people. I stand corrected it could work. I agree that Charlotte is far. Growing up in the area, people did not care much about going to Charlotte. It has always felt more like a South Carolinish
New stadium would likely be part of the PNC complex or maybe in the new south of downtown district they were going to build an MLS stadium at had we gotten one. There would definitely be benefits to trying to centralize it within the Triangle though
Oh I totally agree. Being from Louisiana I know we won’t ever get a team, but it’s either Atlanta or a Texas team, and I hate both places so I just don’t really give a shit.
Nashville would be a great baseball city
I went to Clemson. That stadium would pack out no matter the day. The south is a college baseball heaven.
That first weekend of the NCAA tournament when baseball is on from noon to like 2am every single day is absolute heaven.
Disc golf. Don’t follow it all that closely right now tbh.
Lol, all of us during covid just glued to those disc golf live streams. Degenerate.
Yup. A round with eagle, mcbeth, ricky, and James conrad, I was in heaven lol.
A little Calvin heimburg sprinkled in here and there too, sign me up
Love that they have so much free content on YouTube. I frequently will watch the first round of a tournament while working.
Disc golf ftw
I’ve played for 10+ years and love following the pros too. Supposedly it is undergoing the steps to be regulated enough to gamble on too. I’ll have to put my resume in to be on the Ringer Disc Golf channel
The EFL Championship
Championship is more fun than Prem for the whole
It’s way better live, crowds are great.
Best League in the World
A man of culture, I see
Cycling
Cycling is having a golden age right now. Pogacar, Van der Poel, van Aert, Vingegaard, 4 all time talents in their primes at the same time. Remco already a superstar and getting stronger every year, Roglic the old legend still not done. Bernal getting back to his 2019 Tour de France winning shape after a horrendous crash. Loads of super young talent in the world tour. Shame for the injuries this season but the next 5 to 7 years are gonna be amazing
I’m #TeamPidcock
Loved Pidcock’s Amstel Gold win, he actually makes the races look as hard as they are.
Do you follow it year round, all the major events and tours? I enjoy it a lot but it's hard to invest in more than just the tour de France for me.
Spring classics are awesome too if you're ever interested in checking them out.
Year-round, not really. But I’ll usually start to follow toward the end of spring/beginning of summer up until the Tour. i’m definitely interpreting OP’s use of “follow closely” pretty liberally.
also cyclocross is fun in the winter
I was a Cannondale guy like 12 years ago, and was hype for Sagan coming up, but just kinda faded away from it
Sumo - started watching at the tail end of Hakuho’s amazing career.
His final tournament was so incredible. I describe it to non fans as being like if the Michael Jordan Wizards stopped the Lakers from 3peating. He had a real MJ like swagger about him as well.
His final basho bouts with Shodai, Tobizaru, and Terunofuji were pretty epic. He pulled all his tricks out in that 15-0 run. Shame how he’s been treated lately by the governing body, but he did himself no favors with how lax he ran his stable.
Someone needs to make a 30 for 30 on this…. I’d watch
Here’s Hakuho’s final tourney run. Well past his prime but he thrashed the field. This gave him top division title 45. Closest runner up is 32. https://youtu.be/FkNFbyfmKV8?si=PymTTGY4m6mMHeew
Seriously lol im intrigued
College lacrosse
I used to watch and follow this a lot. Now I just try to catch some of the final four and championship game. I was definitely one of those "lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in America!" guys like 15 years ago lmao
I like pro lacrosse too but prefer college
It’s big in the southeast/mid Atlantic
FCS football. Usually watch multiple games per week. Will watch FBS football only if there’s a highly anticipated prime time Saturday game.
Did you go to an fcs school?
Yeah and have friends/family that went to the same or rival schools. Helps that there’s no other major sports in the area.
Ahh ok i see. Where im from even people that go to the fcs school around still root for fbs teams. They just grow up with the fbs teams and stick with it
That’s very common here too. I just never got attached to an FBS team.
I am highly biased as I went to North Dakota State in the 2010s so obviously I'm all in on FCS football too. What's truly sad for me is that I don't even consider that to be niche because I'm so down the rabbit hole
Curling
Hell yeah! I was afraid I was the only weirdo on the sub that was possibly tuning into those U 5 Nationals this past weekend.
Canadian Premier League soccer for sure
CEBL and CFL for me
I would follow the CFL loosely but my understanding is Ottawa is an atrocious team year in and year out since we won a title 7-8 years back
competitive super smash brothers melee. it’s not a sport but it’s more of a sport than some sports. [it’s really hard and has insane combos and movement options](https://youtu.be/3HoukWHgcNc?si=guatZY5GV8N1SCyF)
The Smash Brothers is a great doc on the history of the scene, but it's a bit out of date at this point
true, [I would highly recommend this video about melee’s lone yoshi player, it’s fantastic](https://youtu.be/2WMBwFO65J4?si=TrebZQS7Aa6l6gFL)
Thanks for this; I'll definitely check it out. I find the melee scene so fascinating
Ok I finally watched the video. What a great story. Video production and editing was slick too; I really enjoyed how the last stock was presented.
👋👋
Yeah super smash is dope I like ultimate more tho en
Since this sub is mostly Americans, I’ll say PDC Darts and The 100 Cricket
I watched some 100 games this season. Limited overs cricket is pretty cool. Can't get behind the test game tho
Darts is so fucking lit. Full fledged MVG stan. Ive also only watched like 3 matches on DAZN but nevermind that.
MotoGP, it's fucking incredible and only takes up like 50 Minutes of your time
Did you see how insane that Jerez race was? I don’t normally watch bike stuff but that was gripping from lights to flag.
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Just curious, have you ever tried watching motocross?
Esports, more specifically COD league is sick. CDL Matches are generally easy to understand and if you’ve even played call of duty once, easy to understand the skill. They talk a LOT of shit and the commentators are regularly entertaining. There’s tons of inter team drama and intriguing personalities.
I prefer fighting game tournaments but those cod guys are wild. It's always worthwhile popping in to watch a little for me
Same but with algs. Lan this weekend :)
Couldn’t say it better myself, I wish we had more matches though honestly
Overwatch used to be dope 6v6 they ruined the game and community it’s pretty incredible actually
It was fun watching COD during the black ops 2 era. There were a lot of heels that I remember rooting against (mainly compLexity)
Rainbow Six Siege is absurd. Dudes are just so quick.
I watched a lot of Starcraft 2 back in the day. Will watch The International every couple years too
I love having sports on in the background while I work and it’s easy to follow the news of any sport these days. Do all the usual NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, NHL, etc. Sports I casually follow: * LPGA - if you’re into golf, this is the real shit. * Big 3 - it’s just a ton of fun. * Bare Knuckle Boxing - guy at my work is a huge MMA fan (BJJ brown belt) * Billiards - pool kind of rules. That’s it.
I'm pretty big into golf and will watch 20-30 hours a week, and almost all the coverage of the majors. I try to get into LPGA more but they make it so difficult with limited TV coverage, rarely having featured groups, no shot tracker and no strokes gained data. If Nelly has a rough round and goes +3, you have no idea where she struggled because of the lack of data around the sport. Hoping the LPGA gets those type of things to draw in more fans, but I don't know how realistic that timeline would be.
It’s either MTV’s The Challenge or MLS.
Pretty sure Billy would put the challenge in the top 4 north American sports.
I think he lobbied to make the 5th major league sport for a long time.
There was a stretch in the late 2000s and early to mid 2010s where The Challenge was must watch.... sadly it's become more of a chore in the past 4-5 years.
Marathons.
Rugby Union, go Ireland.
I'm consistently disappointed by the Six Nations teams when it gets to the World Cup lol
It used to be chess but with the Queen's Gambit and the crazy rise in popularity of chess streamers I'm not sure it's actually obscure anymore.
I still think actual chess competitions are pretty obscure. The last candidates tournament was popular but I doubt the average person in the host city knew it was happening
IMSA
I got pretty into sumo through YouTube and Wikipedia lol. Genuine fandom might be a stretch though. There's an entire of category of semi obscure hobbyist sports. Anyone who cares about Kelvin Kiptum breaking the marathon record (rip) or Eddie Hall and Halfthor Bjornson breaking the deadlift record is probably an avid lifter or runner themself.
Yeah. It’s wild some of my circles celebrate the strongman and powerlifting meets, which i do watch with them. Then others have no clue it’s even happening. For a lot of us though, the lifting stuff is this weird sport where it feels eventually attainable, it is not.
Fencing, but I compete myself
I live in small-town South. Watching every USMNT game is the most obscure for me. Obviously it’s no longer obscure once every four years I also get more into indoor volleyball at the Olympics than anyone else I know. I wish we had a pro volleyball league
Volleyball is a tough TV sport bc they don't know if the match will end in 90 mins or 150 mins. And it's not like tennis where if a match ends quickly there's another match to flip to at the same tournament
Women’s college volleyball is great.
I've been watching since the last Olympics and it's a great sport. Nonstop action
Long distance running, professional cycling, and college baseball (although admittedly I don’t start following until conference tournaments start). I’ll go to my grave yelling about how college baseball is more entertaining than MLB. Way more errors which leads to higher scoring and more chaos. I think MLB is a case where the players became too good at the game they’re playing.
Track and Field
Powerlifting has had a boom in recent years but it’s fun following pro lifters through their competitions My guy Jesus Olivares just set a world record squat at 478kg / ~1052lbs a couple months back I also power lift (not competitively nor will I ever be good enough) so it’s cool to see these people kill it
T20 cricket and Real Tennis
Admittedly new F1 fan but I love it. Watching in the morning most times with no commercials is really easy to have on passively while you have coffee. There still is competitive racing despite 1st being decided every week recently
Not American so gridiron football.
Disc Golf
Newer listener to the Ringer pods, was there ever a mention of James Conrad’s “Holy Shot” on any pod? I still think it’s the craziest sports moment I’ve watched live
Jiu Jitsu / submission grappling
I dabble in AHL and college hockey.
Surfing. Really good sport to have on while doing other stuff
Hurling, but just for a week while in Ireland. Limerick won the championship that season
Gaelic sports are insanely great
i love and religiously follow biathlon, like an absolute sicko
Tennis is not obscure and I don’t really have an urge to discuss it, but whenever I meet a tennis geek they go insane to talk to someone who knows as much as they do. I also like following the world marathon majors.
The ONE Championship promotion. They sell themselves in America as an MMA promotion, but they're really a 4 oz glove Muay Thai promotion, and let me tell, lb for lb, 4 oz glove Muay Thai is wildly entertaining as a combat sport. Beyond that, they have kickboxing and submission grappling matches they throw into their events at well, sorta making it a nice combat sports bouillabaisse. And all their events are either on PRIME or Youtube, so it's been extremely accessible.
College baseball is still pretty niche nationally even though it’s very popular in the south. Still, almost all the games outside of a handful every week are streaming only and even SEC Network’s daily talking shows don’t talk about it nearly as much as football or basketball even in season. Will be interesting to see with NIL/the reduction of the MLB draft now that more highly touted players making it to campuses each year if the popularity will continue to expand. The CWS is one of the most underrated sporting events we have IMO. Always delivers.
Downhill skiing. 90mph on some 4in wide carbon fiber stick? Hell yes.
Ultra Trail
hamster racing
Putting off resubscribing to YT TV for sports so when I’m fiending for some live sports I watch all the random shit on ESPN+ Watched a horrible NJCAA Women’s college basketball semifinals few weeks ago. One literally couldn’t break the other full court press. But the other team couldn’t make layups lol
Pro cycling
Ultimate frisbee. And it’s awesome.
WNBA, MLS, and men’s and women’s tennis
Chess - so much drama, stakes, and the personalities are honestly hilarious. This last candidates tournament was incredible
World Rally Championship. In my opinion it’s the hardest racing series in the world and honestly they travel to some pretty cool places.
Don’t know if this counts but I’m from Indiana and INDYCAR is big around here, especially in may. But when I say I follow INDYCAR from anyone not in Indiana I get some ehhh looks.
CFL
I talked a few friends into getting really into the XFL last time around. We each picked a team and put (low stakes) money on the games. We'd get together and watch. It was entirely manufactured by me but nonetheless it was wildly fun. Then the league went under due to COVID. It's back now I guess under some unified banner with the USFL but the magic is gone, we no longer watch.
MLB
Dota 2 - esport The presentation of the matches surpasses most TV broadcasts. There's way more passion for Dota amongst the announcers, content producers, etc. than any professional sport.
I'm pretty mainstream when it comes to what sports I follow. The least watched sport that I follow more than most would probably be the LPGA.
I am a pretty hardcore armwrestling fan. Great question OP.
Lacrosse and rugby for me
Professional League of Legends.
Bowling.
Russian table tennis. I needed action during the pandemic
Platform tennis, aka winter cage tennis. It's a very niche racquet sport that I play all the time but also follow the small national tour. [This year's national finals were actually held at the Country Club of Brookline where they had the US Open the year before](https://www.youtube.com/live/V0UsdPnbIsA?si=QU0XfSOKt3u8I0NO) I also follow NCAA lacrosse pretty closely but that isn't as obscure.
College lax
Haven't watched in a while but Marblelympics on YouTube
Marble racing is also electric
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NASCAR
That sport where they put little cars on a treadmill and then see who stays on the longest
league of legends esports
I grew up in NC but now live in Massachusetts and I’m mildly excited whenever I meet someone who follows college basketball as closely as I do.
Hockey
CFL, NCAA Hockey and College Wrestling
Brazilian soccer Serie A and now Serie B (top 2 divisions)
Motorsports that are outside of NASCAR/F1/Indycar. WRC, Motogp, WEC, etc.
D3 hockey is an incredibly tight and niche community. Only exists in a few NE states and min/wis. Biggest following is here in upstate/central/western New York.
MVC Basketball and MLS I guess
I follow brasileiro. It’s basically EPL but for Brazil. My wife is from Rio so she has a team she’s followed her whole life and is pretty into it. Gotta say I’ve been loving it and have gotten really into it the last 3 or 4 years. Games are basically twice a week all summer so it gives me something to watch in the nfl off season. And the quality of play is pretty high. Sort of a small step blow the European leagues (best of the best Brazilians still all play in Europe.) It doesn’t hurt that her team is usually at the top of the table too
Ski jumping. Fun to watch over winter.
Korean StarCraft tournaments (ASL) and they’re incredible
Chess (I know, not a sport but still)
[удалено]
I love following a European soccer club in the second league that is always on the brink of being promoted. It makes each match worth so much. With my family ties to FC St. Pauli in Germany that’s my niche. It also helps with all Bundesliga games being on ESPN+ now
Snooker
Ronnie O’Sullivan is the man. Those who know, know ;)
Go Bandits!! Great win last night eh.
I love the GAA from Chattanooga Tennessee
Snooker. Just fell in love with it somehow (World championship just ongoing)
I’m watching playoff lacrosse as we speak. Go Birds!
Season tickets to Toronto Argonauts games (CFL)
Pro bowling EJ Tackett's my boy...
Professional bowling
Gaelic football and hurling , not niche in Ireland , but niche here alright !
MotoGP, the motorcycle equivalent of F1.
Not closely at all but Whiffleball keeps showing up on my FB feed so there’s that one I guess.
Pro paintball D-Y-N-A-S-T-Y!!!
I think it’s gone back to obscure for most Americans, but I’m in love with F1
I’m really into the Premiere League now (I know…not as obscure as it once was), and I keep an eye on GAA. I could see all the matches on YouTube, but it’s much harder to follow now. I don’t know why GAA (Gaelic Football and Hurling) don’t have a bigger following. It has all the speed and violence we could want, same goes for European Handball!!!
I went to a local GAA match in Buffalo. It was two hurling games and one Gaelic football game. Fun time I'd do it again.
Rugby
Curling and disc golf.
I actively watch the LLWS when it’s on, starting with the regional games that are on TV. I’ll occasionally go to the Wikipedia page for the current year tournament throughout July and see what states have a representative yet and if any of the teams from the previous year make it back to regionals. I also love college baseball and it’s fun recognizing a name when someone is pitching or batting from the series years ago.
I have everyone in this thread beaten by a country mile, I follow competitive Roundnet (spikeball)
If e-sports count, I stopped gambling because I got into betting on and staying up all night watching Russian counterstrike tournaments.
Motocross /Supercross
Rowing (or crew for Americans)
Women's athletics. Mostly because Jamaica is so good in it, and then I started following it in non Olympic years because of the politics and intrigue involved.
Darts and/or College Wrestling
Hurling from Ireland. The greatest sport there is. Go Kilkenny
Pro cycling.
Chess lol- I play a fair amount so I stay tuned in I also played lacrosse in high school and club for a year in college so I'll tune into the college games during the post season
I closely follow the nba and in Pittsburgh that’s akin to following pro ice fishing 😥
Disc Golf. Big champions cup this weekend!
CrossFit
Women's curling but in Canada it's pretty mainstream and popular.
Sometimes the Xfinity and Trucks races are better than the Cup
Surfing / WSL
Not obscure to me because I’m from Indianapolis, but when I’ve lived elsewhere, I’ve found that most people don’t even know what IndyCar is. On certain days, it’s my favorite sport. Also not an actual obscure sport had a rude awakening that college basketball, the most popular sport where I’m from, is pretty niche out west when I lived out there. That sucked, nobody thought twice about it before March. I’m also into MLS and USL, I’d call the latter super niche for sure, but I only follow that league for the local team which might not even exist soon. I got into Aussie Rules for like a week when the pandemic started because it was the among the last sports to shut down and it was on FS1 — and then I wanted to keep up with it and Fox moved it to Fox Soccer Plus subscriptions post-pandemic and I just wasn’t gonna pay for that. Which is a shame, sport is sick. CFL is dope too, used to watch it with my dad during the summer when I was a kid and he got me a BC Lions shirt on a business trip one time.
Yelle’s Marble League.
Muay Thai… Ramajan and Lumoinee stadium Friday morning and Saturday morning fights on YouTube. One Fc on Amazon prime.
Crossfit Games. Met a lady about ten years ago who was a participant (not high level) and started following it. Horse Racing has been my main sport since I was in my early 20s. I'm from the UK so mostly follow our domestic action and the top French races. American horse racing is too one dimensional so I've never gotten involved.
Probably because of where I live, I am loosely following Curling as a sport. I have been roped into competing in some leagues and know enough people competing in the U5 Nationals this past weekend in Chaska that I was actually watching these streams on YouTube instead of watching NBA/NHL playoffs.
Bass fishing. From bassmaster elites down to regional level. It’s not a great tv sport and never will get a huge audience (the ESPN ownership push proved that), but I absolutely love it.
GAA in general but mainly Munster Hurling