To what extent did college, professional, and Olympic sports competition decline during the Great Depression?
A lot of sports had monetary troubles during the 1930’s but I don’t think the level of athletic competition declined due to the Great Depression.
The St. Louis Browns drew 80,000 people once during the Great Depression–not for one game, but all season. (With 77 home games, less double-headers, that’s a little more than a thousand fans per home date.)
But still, all of the major American college and professional sports survived. The bigger problem came during World War II, when healthy young men were otherwide occupied.
I don’t know about that. The Depression was a pretty darn serious threat to organized baseball’s existence, I think The Philadelphia A’s had to dismantle their great team just to make payroll.
As far as I know the depression is regarded as having been still going in 1937 in Britain. It would especially have hit Glasgow, but in 8 days you had the 2 biggest football crowds of all time in Britain (and Europe as well, I think); on the 17th of April there were 149,415 at the Scotland v England game, and a week later there were 147,365 at the Scottish Cup Final between Aberdeen and Celtic. There are thought to have been several thousand more sneaking into the ground as well.