It’s difficult to establish that professional wrestling was ever a legitimate sport on any widespread or well accepted basis. There were legitimate matches at times, but the issue became clouded in the first attempt to create a world champion, and at that time the illegitimate aspects of the sport already existed.
Boxing isn’t dead, it’s still very strong outside of the US and growing in popularity in many countries.
Greyhound racing and Jai Alai sound like a couple of good prospects for extinction.
It was never a major sport though by any definition as old as it is. I had never heard of it before today but I looked it up. Shooting for maximum distance with no regard for accuracy and the record for some types of bows is over a mile. It sounds dangerous as hell for the greater community. It must be tough to find a place to even hold the championships.
I have a video of a shooter shooting a broken arrow right through his hand. Just by chance I told my son to zoom in on the shooters hand to see how far he was drawing the arrow. I have also seen arrows go through a foot. I had the impression it was once a major sport of the Turks but could be wrong.
The only place the U.S. is currently holding meets is at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
In the past some of the Ca dry lake beds were used. Finding knitting needle sized arrows shot almost a mile from the shooter can take quite a while to find.
Bowls (lawn bowling) at least in the US isn’t very active anymore. Requires a special lawn area (bowling green). Mount Vernon had one and was built by G Washington’s father. There is a Bowls USA club. It’s still played somewhere in the US,
Whatever gave you that idea? An estimated 28 million people in the US played tennis last year, a number that has increased each of the last few years.
The US Open is the highest-attended annual sporting event in the world, with an attendance of over 700,000. Of course, as it lasts two weeks that 700k will include many people going more than once.
What has changed is that male American players no longer dominate the world game, so you hear less in the news than in the days of Sampras/Agassi/Courier/McEnroe/Connors.
Regular old bowling is dying out as well. The local leagues especially, but also just regular folks bowling a few games. My smallish city is down from four alleys back in the 90’s to one now. I would imagine the pro game has probably seen some similar decline.
33 in all of Southern California and three of those are within a ten minute drive from my house. Two of those are close walking distance from one another. I must live in the lawn bowling capital of the world and I didn’t even know that those places existed. I am literally within a stones throw of the two close ones two or three times a week.
Ice yachting and rowing were major spectator sports in 1871. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an iceboat, and rowing is strictly small time in the US.
Pedestrianism and cat-boat racing were big in 1881.
There were also airplane races in the 1920s and 30s.
Paperchasing was a major college sport in the 19th century. It faded when it was discovered that the people leading the chase (“the hares”) always won.
I still think bear baiting qualifies as a once popular, now dead sport.
From here: “Since the first modern [Olympic] Games in 1896, 10 sports have disappeared completely from the Olympic schedule. These are croquet, cricket, Jeu de Paume, pelota, polo, roque, rackets, tug-of-war, lacrosse and motor boating.” Unfortunately, the best candidates were played only once, so it’s hard to say that they were ever popular. Jeu de Paume is an old version of tennis, played in once in the Olympics in 1908. Basque Pelota is allegedly known as the fastest sport in the world. I don’t think it really qualifies as dead: it’s still played in Basque country. Roque is a hard-surface form of the game crocquet played in 1904. Rackets was an early version of racketball played in 1908. Yawn.
I found a .pdf powerpoint presentation on colonial sports. Apparently Puritans believed they were a waste of time, unless they had a point like hunting. In the south, horse racing and blood sports were popular. Cudgeling had its fan base; I’m not aware of any modern adherents.
No, it’s still healthy in the same place in which it has always been healthy. What was weird was that it was played elsewhere, but sorry, the foreign players were viewed as a curiosity that gave our players an excuse to move to some sunny place when they went to pasture.
Dog races are pretty much dead in Spain (I think there is two tracks left); horse races are alive in Jerez but dead otherwise.
At one time arena bullfighting (corridas) were popular enough in Barcelona that the city had two arenas. Now it’s banned in Catalonia (other forms of bullfighting, being local and therefore not having been labeled as “a Spanish import” and yes I do realize the irony of that label, are still legal); one of the two arenas has become a mall, the other one a museum.
Target shooting used to be a popular spectator sport here in the United States through the early 20th century. Can you imagine a high school with a girl’s rifle team today? Of course the sport hasn’t died out but I thought it deserved mention simply because it’s not as popular as it once was.
There was the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) which was very popular in the late 70’s - early 80’s before dying out in the early 90’s. Yeah we still have soccer but the indoor game was much different than the outdoor game, almost more like hockey than soccer. We used to call it “human pinball.”
If you want to count the XFL as a separate sport, it’s rise and fall took only one year. Arena Football is another one if you count it as a major sport. I don’t know if anyone is still playing, but even if they are it can’t go on much longer. Also outside of the major sports category, Jarts.
