I went skiing all day yesterday, and I'm pleasantly sore. It was only my second time skiing, but I had a blast.
I do have one problem with skiing though- it's a real rich-kid sport, maybe the most rich-kid of them all.
For as long as basketball has been my favorite sport to play and watch, one of my stated reasons has been that it's the most accessible. The key thing is that the investment is all up front and at the team level. Once you have some hoops and balls set up, each player doesn't need to own anything other than (fairly-normal) shoes. The small court size makes it especially great in an urban environment.
Soccer is a close second, requiring more space, but simpler goals. Cleats and shin-guards also bump it a bit higher up the scale, but its worldwide popularity definitely comes in part from how fun it can be with just a ball.
Baseball rounds out the three that I played in my urban little league, but between the huge field and fairly-neccessary gloves (it's bad if you're the only one without one), it's another step back from soccer.
On the other end of the spectrum you have the classic rich-kid sports of tennis, golf, and skiing.
As I get older, I realize that besides being rich-kid sports, they're also the sports that are good to play as you age (I'm not quite there, but close).
Skiing is a very expensive undertaking, with significant equipment investment and daily expenses for lift tickets. But it does bring whole families together as few other athletic activities can.
I have a special place for golf in my heart, because Los Angeles has taken it out of the rich-kid category. The Los Angeles Public Golf Courses are numerous, cheap, and not at all intimidating. For a few bucks you can rent clubs and play nine holes of a three par course, and you'll see people from all walks of life there. They also have some real championship courses, although you have to have a bag for that (I got a complete set for $12 between two garage sales one weekend).
Anyway, here's my attempt at listing sports (a somewhat random assortment) in order of populism, with an emphasis on urban environments, from most populist to least:
I think this also reveals a bias (reasonable in my mind) that team sports = populist sports.
Send me ones I missed or re-ordering suggestions. It'd also be fun to
check out the Alexa numbers for each sport's main website and see how
they line up.
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