Sports Injury Statistics 2026: Rates by Activity and Age

Sports injury statistics vary by sport, age and the way an injury is counted. CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights estimated 564,845 emergency department visits involving exercise or exercise equipment, including 289,494 among adults ages 25 to 64. This 2026 guide compares that emergency department snapshot with published school and college studies, keeping each source’s observation period visible.

An emergency department count describes treatment burden. An injury rate per athlete-exposure describes reported events during practices and competitions. The tables below separate these measures so you can compare activity and age patterns without confusing a national count with an individual’s risk.

Sports Injury Statistics at a Glance

These headline numbers span different settings. The CPSC figure covers product-related injuries treated in emergency departments across the United States and territories. The football, basketball, soccer, and ACL rates come from participating NCAA programs and count medical-attention injuries during organized practices or competitions.

The biggest count does not automatically signal the greatest risk to one participant. Participation, time spent active, reporting systems, and access to medical care all shape the number that appears in a dataset.

How Sports Injury Statistics Are Measured

Sports injury statistics are measured by applying a case definition to a defined population and denominator. The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases uses “sports injury” broadly for injuries common during sports or exercise, including acute events and conditions that develop through repetitive loading. Surveillance systems need narrower rules so researchers can count cases consistently. This context is explained by NIAMS.

A population rate per 100,000 uses residents as the denominator, including people who did not participate in the activity. An athlete-exposure rate uses participation events. One athlete taking part in one practice or competition counts as one exposure, regardless of minutes played.

What Counts as a Sports Injury

CPSC’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, or NEISS, estimates product-related injuries treated in hospital emergency departments from a national probability sample. Its 2024 highlights used a sample of 100 hospitals, 77 of which reported that year. One person can appear in as many as three product groups when several products were associated with the same injury. These findings are reported in CPSC’s NEISS program. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

NCAA sport studies use a different case definition. A reportable injury occurred during an organized intercollegiate practice or competition and required attention from a team athletic trainer or physician, regardless of time loss. High school definitions can be narrower and may require at least one day of restricted participation. These definitions come from the NCAA men’s football study and CDC’s high school injury surveillance study.

No responsible ranking blends those measures. Counts, population rates, athlete-exposure rates, and rare catastrophic outcomes answer different questions.

How to Compare Sports Injury Statistics

Start with the denominator. A national injury count answers, “How many estimated emergency department visits were associated with this product group?” A rate per 100,000 residents adjusts that count for the size of an age group, but it still includes people who never took part in the activity. An athlete-exposure rate asks a different question by dividing reported injuries by recorded practices and competitions.

Next, check the care setting and injury threshold. NEISS captures cases treated in participating hospital emergency departments, then weights those cases to produce national estimates. The NCAA studies count injuries that received attention from a team athletic trainer or physician during organized team activity, even when the athlete lost no participation time. The historical high school surveillance required both medical attention and at least one day of restricted participation. These findings are reported in CPSC’s NEISS program. These findings are reported in CDC’s high school injury surveillance study.

Geography and population matter just as much. A U.S. emergency department estimate cannot describe injury burden in another country. A study of participating NCAA men’s teams cannot automatically represent women’s teams, club athletes, recreational participants, or professional leagues. A school-based dataset can reflect access to athletic trainers and the reporting practices of participating programs.

Finally, keep uncertainty visible. NEISS estimates come from a probability sample, not a census of every hospital. CPSC publishes coefficients of variation to show sampling variability and warns that raw sampled-case counts are not appropriate for comparisons. When two estimates are close, the apparent difference may be less informative than the activity mix, age pattern, or broader order of magnitude. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

Sports Injury Statistics by Sport and Activity

The activity-by-age table below uses CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights. It estimates product-related injuries treated in hospital emergency departments in the United States and territories. CPSC has released 2025 raw data, but the figures below remain a clearly labeled 2024 snapshot rather than a claim about the latest available year.

All estimates in this table are from CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights. The all-ages total includes children under five, whose separate column is not shown.

Exercise and exercise equipment produced the largest all-age estimate among the selected categories at 564,845 visits. Bicycles and accessories followed at 454,008. Basketball reached 385,777. These are national estimates, and each had a coefficient of variation between 0.08 and 0.10. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

The table shows how quickly the mix changes by age. Football led the selected categories for ages 5 to 14 with 172,530 estimated visits. Basketball led ages 15 to 24 with 176,752. For ages 25 to 64 and 65 or older, exercise and exercise equipment had the largest selected-category counts at 289,494 and 119,127. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

Why Injury Counts Do Not Equal Risk

A popular activity can produce many emergency department visits because millions of people take part. NEISS does not supply a participant denominator for these product groups, so the figures cannot establish that one sport is inherently more dangerous.

The estimate is tied to treatment setting. Injuries handled in an athletic training room, clinic, urgent care center, physician’s office, or at home do not appear in this emergency department dataset. Product association does not always prove organized sport participation or the precise mechanism of injury.

Sampling uncertainty deserves attention too. CPSC reports a coefficient of variation for each estimate. Raw case counts from sampled hospitals should not be compared because individual cases carry different statistical weights. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

How Can You Match Training Difficulty to Your Current Ability?

Match training difficulty to your current ability by changing one variable at a time and keeping each rep controlled. TRX Training applies that idea to the TRX Suspension Trainer™, where a change in body angle changes resistance and lets the same movement work across a range of fitness levels. That adjustability is a programming option, not proof of injury prevention and not a substitute for care when something hurts.

Sports Injury Statistics by Age

Age patterns are clearest when the same source, year, case definition, and product groups stay fixed. In the 2024 CPSC table, the denominator for each age-specific rate was the July 1, 2024 U.S. resident population for that age band. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

Children Ages 5 to 14

Within the selected sport and recreation categories, ages 5 to 14 had an estimated 172,530 football-related emergency department visits, 148,211 playground-equipment visits, 128,395 basketball visits, 124,958 soccer visits, and 105,446 bicycle-related visits. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

Those figures cover organized and unorganized activity associated with the named product groups. They do not capture every injury treated outside a hospital emergency department.

Teens and Young Adults Ages 15 to 24

Basketball led the selected categories for ages 15 to 24 with 176,752 estimated visits. Football followed at 121,268, then exercise and exercise equipment at 106,552, soccer at 91,215, and all-terrain vehicles, mopeds, and minibikes at 81,427. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

This age band crosses school, college, club, and recreational settings. CPSC’s product categories do not separate them, so the table should not be read as a high school or college league ranking.

Adults Ages 25 to 64

Exercise and exercise equipment accounted for 289,494 estimated visits among adults ages 25 to 64. Bicycles and accessories reached 211,314, all-terrain vehicles and related equipment reached 149,753, and skateboards, scooters, and hoverboards reached 131,317. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

The shift in activity mix is descriptive. The source does not test why the mix changes or whether one activity causes more injuries per participant.

Adults Ages 65 and Older

Among adults 65 and older, exercise and exercise equipment accounted for 119,127 estimated visits, bicycles and accessories for 56,412, and golf for 29,266. The rate for exercise and exercise equipment was 195.1 visits per 100,000 residents in this age group. These findings are reported in CPSC’s 2024 NEISS Data Highlights.

Movement still matters. NIAMS notes that physical activity is safe for most people and that health and social benefits outweigh the risks. These figures support sensible preparation and qualified guidance, not avoiding exercise.

Youth Sports Injury Statistics and High School Injury Rates

For historical context only, CDC reported on nine U.S. high school sports during the 2005-06 school year. A reportable injury required medical attention and at least one day away from participation. The overall rate was 2.44 injuries per 1,000 athlete-exposures, with football at 4.36, wrestling at 2.50, boys’ soccer at 2.43, girls’ soccer at 2.36, and girls’ basketball at 2.01. These findings are reported in CDC’s high school injury surveillance study.

Competition rates were higher than practice rates in every sport in that historical surveillance year. That finding describes 2005-06. It should not be presented as a current 2026 high school rate. These findings are reported in CDC’s high school injury surveillance study.

College Sports Injury Rates

The NCAA men’s football study, the NCAA men’s basketball study and the NCAA men’s soccer study cover the 2014-15 through 2018-19 academic years. Athletic trainers at participating U.S. colleges reported medical-attention injuries and scheduled practice or competition exposures.

Football, Basketball, and Soccer

Men’s football recorded 17,315 injuries across 1,860,042 athlete-exposures, an overall rate of 9.31 per 1,000 exposures. Its competition injury rate was 6.45 times the practice rate. Concussions represented 7.5% of reported injuries, ankle ligament tears 6.9%, and hamstring tears 4.7%. These findings are reported in the NCAA men’s football study.

Men’s basketball recorded 3,481 injuries across 478,150 exposures, for 7.28 injuries per 1,000. The competition rate was 12.05 per 1,000 and the practice rate was 5.82, producing a competition-to-practice rate ratio of 2.07. Ankle injuries accounted for 22.2% of reported injuries, followed by knee injuries at 13.0%. These findings are reported in the NCAA men’s basketball study.

Men’s soccer recorded 2,821 injuries across 331,678 exposures, for 8.51 injuries per 1,000. The competition rate was 2.90 times the practice rate. Thigh injuries accounted for 16.6% of reported injuries and ankle injuries for 15.0%. These findings are reported in the NCAA men’s soccer study.

These NCAA figures support comparisons within the same system and years. They are not professional sports injury statistics and do not rank youth recreation or all U.S. participants.

Competition Versus Practice

Competition produced higher injury rates than practice in each of the three NCAA studies. The gap was largest in football, followed by soccer and basketball. One athlete-exposure still counts participation in an event, not minutes played, workload, or number of contacts. These comparisons come from the NCAA men’s football study, the NCAA men’s basketball study and the NCAA men’s soccer study.

Program participation varied by sport, division, and year. The studies used rolling recruitment and poststratification weights for national estimates but reported unweighted injury rates for many analyses. That makes the methods useful, but it does not turn the sample into a census. The NCAA men’s basketball study explains the weighting and reporting approach.

Knee, ACL, Concussion, and TBI Statistics

Diagnosis-specific data need their own denominators. A knee injury percentage among reported team injuries cannot be combined with an emergency department TBI rate per 100,000 residents.

Knee Injury Statistics in Sports and ACL Rates

A 2024 NCAA study analyzed ACL tears from 2014-15 through 2018-19 across men’s and women’s sports. It recorded 729 ACL tears in 8,474,401 athlete-exposures, an overall rate of 0.86 per 10,000 exposures. These findings are reported in the NCAA ACL study.

The competition ACL tear rate was 5.52 times the practice rate. Men’s football had the highest overall rate among men’s sports at 1.44 per 10,000 exposures. Women’s soccer had the highest among women’s sports at 2.60. These findings are reported in the NCAA ACL study.

Those results apply to the NCAA sports and seasons included in the study. They should not be generalized to children, recreational adults, professional athletes, or every type of knee injury.

Sports-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Statistics

CDC analyzed U.S. NEISS-All Injury Program records for children ages 17 and under from 2001 through 2018. The case definition required the primary body part to be the head and the principal diagnosis to be concussion or internal organ injury during organized or unorganized sport and recreation. These findings are reported in CDC’s pediatric TBI study.

Across those years, an estimated 3,888,020 sports- and recreation-related TBI emergency department visits occurred. The overall rate fell 27% from 411.1 per 100,000 children in 2012 to 298.8 in 2018. These findings are reported in CDC’s pediatric TBI study.

Contact-sport TBI visits fell 32% from 189.9 per 100,000 in 2012 to 129.4 in 2018. Among children ages 5 to 17 in 2018, football had the highest contact-sport rate at 72.4, followed by basketball at 46.6 and soccer at 32.5 per 100,000. These findings are reported in CDC’s pediatric TBI study.

These are population rates, not athlete-exposure rates. The observation period ends in 2018, so the results describe historical change rather than a current incidence rate.

What the Numbers Do and Do Not Tell Us

The safest conclusion is the most useful one. Sports injury statistics can describe burden, patterns, and reported rates inside a defined system. They cannot predict what will happen to one athlete without participation, exposure, health, training, and setting information that most broad datasets do not contain.

A 2026 page title signals when this resource was published and checked. Every statistic keeps its original source year.

Use Sports Injury Data Without Overreacting

The numbers support a measured response. Learn the rules for your activity, use suitable equipment, increase workload gradually, and get qualified help when pain or symptoms appear.

TRX’s guide to the importance of warming up can help you plan a more deliberate start to training. The resource is practical context, not proof that any routine prevents injury.

If you have pain, an injury, or a medical question, consult a qualified healthcare professional. This page provides general information and does not replace diagnosis, treatment, or rehabilitation advice.

TRX’s guide to proper exercise form adds movement context for controlled practice. It remains editorial guidance, not a treatment plan or guarantee against injury.

Explore TRX Research and Training Tools

Make the data do something useful by choosing a training setup that fits your goals, space, and current ability.

You can review TRX Research for first-party context on its training approach.

No product guarantees injury prevention or replaces professional care.

If you want adaptable equipment for a broader program, explore TRX Suspension Trainers™ and strength training equipment.