A Huge Spell for Canadian Sport
Are you prepared for what is going to be a summer full of amazing sports? The 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be hosted in Paris and Euro 2024 will take centre stage in Germany. The tournament may shed some light on who will win the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Against the backdrop of an exciting year of sport ahead of us, which sports are taking Canada by storm? The team at BetVictor took a deep dive into the most trending sports in Canada in 2024, as well as discovering which sports are the most popular in the 12 cities included in this study.
Key Findings
- Golf is the most searched sport in Canada, racking up over 800,000 searches in the past year
- Ontario has the most sporting facilities per 100,000 people when compared to other Canadian provinces
- Tennis had the highest percentage increase in search data in the past year, up 102%
Golf is on the rise and could soon be one of Canada’s favourite sports
So, what are the most popular sports in Canada? According to search data from the past year, golf is the most popular sport in Canada as it has been searched the most, with over 800,000 individual searches. However, the fastest-growing sport is tennis, as searches for the racket sport have increased by 102% in the past year.
Despite these figures, Hockey is still the most popular sport in half of the cities in this study, as it is still their second-most searched-for sport. Hockey is the nation’s greatest and most famous sport, so its popularity isn’t surprising. However, the number of facilities in these cities doesn’t match their favourite sport as Edmonton is the only exception that has the facilities to cope with the demand.
Windsor is the top city for sporting facilities
So where is the place to be in Canada when it comes to playing sports? Unsurprisingly, Ontario is the best province in Canada to be an athlete, but the best city may surprise you as Windsor takes the crown. Windsor has the highest number of sporting facilities per 100,000 people in six out of the eight sports included in the study.
Toronto is the worst city to be playing sports in Canada despite playing host to numerous venues to take part in various activities. Hogtown scored so poorly due to its large population, meaning that you may have a battle on your hands to use the facilities in the city. It’s a similar story in both Montréal and Calgary, as their facilities per 100,000 residents also ranked extremely low. Canada’s capital, Ottawa, fared slightly better and ended up in the middle of the pack alongside Vancouver, Winnipeg and Edmonton.
The most common sporting facilities in Canada are those that cater for soccer. In five out of the 12 cities, soccer has the highest volume of facilities per 100,000 people when compared to the other seven sports. This is great for the future of soccer, as the sport will surely explode when the 2026 World Cup takes over Canada.
Golf and tennis facilities required in ‘majority’ of Canadian cities
A big takeaway from this study is that some sports organisations need to do more to manage the surging demand for their respective sport in Canada.
Golf and tennis are in desperate need of increased facilities nationally, as the demand for these sports has skyrocketed over the past year. These sports need to be accessible and match the demand. If Canada doesn’t cater properly for these sports, then young talent might not be nurtured as well as it could be.
Hockey facilities are also at a strong level, but they could be increased in some of the smaller cities, but overall they are close to matching the demand for the sport. As mentioned earlier, soccer facilities are in a good place, but lesser-searched activities aren’t quite up to speed.
Curling is one such example, as the winter sport seems neglected. Only Winnipeg has more than one curling facility per 100,000 people, so the lack of opportunity to play curling is evident. Canada could be missing out on a generation of amazing curlers who don’t have an opportunity to play the sport.
Methodology
The sports were chosen for this study using the most watched sports in Canada. The sports were then selected based on those in which we could find the most data.
We chose the cities based on their population as well as ensuring they were geographically spread out to achieve fairness and representation nationally
The search data was collected using Keywordtool.io. Every search was recorded in a similar manner to fairly gather the number of searches for each sport in each city in the past year. Furthermore, we also recorded the increase or decrease in the trending percentage of the searches for each sport when compared to the previous year.
The number of facilities for each city was recorded using the places data on Google when Googling ‘XXX (sport) facilities in XXX (city)’.
The overall ranking table was created by combining the facilities for each sport in each city per 100,000 people. The higher the number of facilities for each sport, the higher the overall score.
