U.S. NATIONAL GOVERNING BODIES: Fascinating numbers on the biggest NGBs by membership, with softball, tennis and ice hockey 1-2-3!

November 3, 2025

When Americans think about the U.S. Olympic Team, naturally sports like track & field and swimming – where the U.S. wins a lot of medals – come to mind right away, and some of the team sports where the U.S. has been dominant, like basketball.

But diversity, equity and inclusion reports submitted to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and published annually since 2013 show that U.S. national federations in hugely-popular sports such as soccer, have no members at all (that’s right, none!).

That’s because their “licensed players” are all part of other organizations, such as those in youth soccer, adult clubs, school teams from middle schools all the way up to the NCAA level, professional leagues and so on. This is the case with the NGB financial leader, the U.S. Soccer Federation, which has many of these organizations associated with it, but not the players, of which it estimates there are 4.2 million in the country.

But there are U.S. National Governing Bodies who do have direct memberships and which oversee competitions in the country, and the 2024 “Demographic Data Report” for each NGB offers pages of details, including membership and the number of athletes on the “National Team” as defined by the NGB. The Sports Examiner