Profiling the world’s top sporting nations: the USA

The eighth and last article in the series focuses exclusively on the number-one global sporting power: the USA. In previous articles, we analysed the performance of Serbia, Poland, Kenya, Switzerland, Sweden, South Korea, Brazil, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Germany, China, Great Britain, Russia and France. We took an in-depth look at each country, highlighting the sports it excels at and how versatile it is in terms of disciplines.

 

The table below shows the aggregate top-20 Global Cup ranking for the 2016-19 quadrennial period (or quad for short), the latest quad for which we have full four-year data. The USA sits proudly at the top, and has done so in each quad, and in fact each year, since GSN records began in 2008.

There are no superlatives left to describe the USA’s sporting results, so a brief list of facts serves just as well to highlight the extent of this country’s planetary sporting supremacy:

 i.  In every year since 2008, the USA has won not just the overall Global Cup, but also each year’s women and men gender rankings – with only one exception, the men’s ranking in 2018, when France, thanks in no small measure to its men winning the FIFA Football World Cup, edged the USA by a mere 88 points

  ii. The USA’s winning margin over the runner-up in the overall Global Cup since 2008 has always been more than 1,000 points; Russia came closest, in 2009, finishing 1,066 points behind the winners, but the margin was as wide as 2,873 points in 2019, when Russia was again runner-up

  iii. On an annual basis, the USA has consistently scored points in more sports than any other nation: in 2019, it scored points in 53 different sports, one shy of its record in the quad (54 sports in 2016), with no other nation scoring points in more than 45 sports

 iv. The USA excels in more disciplines than any other country: in each of the 2016-19 quad’s four years, it won the annual ranking in respectively 10, 10, 11 and 8 sports; the tally in 2019 was 8 wins, 11 second places and five third places, for a total of 24 podium finishes out of 53 sports in which the USA scored points

   v.  Besides this astonishing strength in depth, the USA is also a dominant presence in GSN’s highest scoring sports and sport groups: during the quad, it was the top nation in Athletics in 2019, 2017 and 2016; it finished three times on the podium in Snow & Ice Sports (and was the winner in 2017); it was always on the podium in Ball Team Sports (and the winner in 2016 and 2019); and it was a three-time winner and one-time runner-up in Aquatics, the sport group which includes Swimming.

 

Which sports contribute most to the USA’s regular Global Cup triumphs? Unsurprisingly, the sports that earn most GSN points on an annual basis, because of their global participation and breadth of events. In three of the quad’s years, Athletics was the highest contributor to the USA’s annual points tally, with as high a share as 26.7% of the country’s total in 2019.

Golf was the USA’s top sport once in the quad, with a 12.6% share of the country’s points in 2018. Another major contributor was Swimming, the USA’s second-best sport in 2019, 2017 and 2016. Volleyball is another big sport for the USA, the country’s second most important points-wise in 2018 and the third in 2016.

 

However, a quick look at the USA’s top-10 list of sports in 2019 proves that the country isn’t just about the leading global disciplines: in sixth to 10^th place in the table there are in fact sports as diverse - for global appeal, media and economic clout - as Artistic Gymnastics, Tennis, Archery, Freestyle Skiing and Trampoline.

 

The USA is currently sixth in the Global Cup. This reflects the country’s relatively diminished influence in Snow & Ice sports, whose tournaments have yielded virtually all the points awarded this year, before sport ground to a halt due to the pandemic. It remains to be seen which sports and tournaments will be staged in the rest of the year, but the USA is undoubtedly primed for a resurgence and another bid at the title of world’s best sporting nation.

 

* position change vs previous quad

 

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Greatest Sporting Nation is a ranking of countries based on their performance in top-level international tournaments in sports in which there is genuine global competition. Countries (national teams and/or individual athletes) score Qualifying Points by finishing in the top eight places in Qualifying Events.

These Qualifying Points are then weighted to produce GSN Points, based on a formula that takes into account individual vs team sports, the sport’s participation (number of countries) and the frequency (annual/biennial/quadrennial) of the tournaments.

The Country scoring the most Points in a calendar year wins the Global Cup for that year. The country that scores the most points relative to its population wins the Per Capita Cup. For a more detailed explanation, please refer to the ‘How It Works’ section on the site.