The only big country where baseball beats football by more than two to one, and where the third favourite sport is fifteen hundred years old.
The most-followed sport in Japan is baseball: 47.5% of the population follow it. It is followed by football (21.7%), sumo (20.8%), golf (10.8%) and basketball (10.3%). Below you will find the numbers, the sports that hold events in Japan, the games from Japan you can play free on FirstPlace.games, and every source.
They add up to more than 100 on purpose. Share of the population that follows each sport. The same person follows several sports, so there is no whole to split: that is why these are bars and not a pie chart. Central Research Services (Chuo Chosa-sha), 34th “Popular Sports” survey, May 2026: 1,201 people aged 20 and over.
| Sport | Of the population |
|---|---|
| Baseball | 47.5% |
| Football | 21.7% |
| Sumo | 20.8% |
| Golf | 10.8% |
| Basketball | 10.3% |
Only events of global scale are listed here. Japan hosts many more local and national competitions that are not on this list.
What the country of baseball, sumo and golf eats: rice, soy and fish. Each food shows its composition per 100 g, from the USDA database.
The base of Japanese food: clean carbohydrate, almost no fat.
Fermented soybeans: plenty of protein and fibre in one dish.
Fermented soybean paste, the base of the everyday soup.
Almost no carbohydrate and about 17 g of protein per 100 g.
Green soybeans in the pod: protein and fibre for snacking.
Protein and fat, no carbohydrate. USDA lists farmed salmon.