The North American continent is the birthplace of several organized sports, such as basketball, charrería/rodeo, gridiron football, ice hockey, jaripeo/bull riding, lacrosse, ollamaliztl (ancient Mesoamerican sport), mixed martial arts (MMA), padel, pickleball, racquetball, ultimate ("ultimate frisbee"), and volleyball.
The modern versions of baseball and softball, skateboarding, snowboarding, stock car racing, and surfing also developed in North America.
While common in other parts of the world, not all North American countries use the promotion-relegation (Pro-Rel) system for their association football/soccer leagues.
Notably, Mexico's league has temporarily suspended its Pro-Rel system but is expected to being reinstated in the coming years.
Other notable sports organizations include lower level sports leagues/orgs such as Bellator MMA (Bellator), the Canadian Football League (CFL), Caribbean Series baseball, NCAA College Baseball/World Series, Group of Five College Football, the Mexican League (LMP, Liga Mexicana de Béisbol), the Mexican Pacific League (LMP, Liga Mexicana del Pacífico), Minor League Baseball (MiLB), NASCAR auto racing, PGA Tour golf, Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), Top Rank boxing, USL Championship soccer (USL), US Open (tennis).
Association football (soccer) is the most popular[clarification needed] sport in almost all North, Central American and Caribbean Countries.
CONCACAF is the continental governing body for association football in North America, and runs two visible tournaments: the Gold Cup and the Champions League[2] The Gold Cup is competed every two years among the men's national teams to determine the regional champion of North America.
Liga MX is North America's most popular association football league with an average attendance of 25,557 during the 2014–15 season.
This Mexican league system uses promotion and relegation, where teams are transferred between levels based on their final records at the end of the season.
Other countries with multi-level professional league systems include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Panama.
The top three most popular football clubs on social media from North America as of 25 March 2021:[4] Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century.
[5] The relationship between MLB and MilB is also the closed, franchise model, which has the same teams playing, and where the players are transferred between levels.
[6] While working as a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School[7] (YMCA) (today, Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S., he primarily created the game as a way to could keep his gym class active indoors on a rainy day.
Similarly, the Baloncesto Superior Nacional Femenino (BSNF) is the women's counterpart professional league to the BSN in Puerto Rico.
College basketball draws average viewership of 10.7 million per game for its annual "March Madness" tournament.
Gridiron football is distinguished by the forward pass, the system of downs, a line of scrimmage, measurements in yards, players wearing hard plastic helmets and shoulder pads, more specialist positions and formations, among others.
In Mexico, the Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional is the professional league, while ONEFA organizes college football.
Although it primarily focuses on the Canadian form of the game, it is also a member of the International Federation of American Football.
Liga Mexicana Élite is the top-level league in Mexico, where ice hockey is not popular, but slowly growing.
All three races in the Mexican Triple Crown series are held at the Hipódromo de las Américas in Mexico City.
The Breeders' Cup, the annual series of Grade I Thoroughbred horse races, has been held in both the United States and Canada.
A relatively new sport, mixed martial arts (MMA) was first sanctioned and codified by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) and the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board (SACB) in the year 2000, establishing the official rules of the modern version of the sport.
Various versions of the sport have existed going back to antiquity; Lei tai in China, Pankration in Greece.