No matter what your sport of choice is, there’s always going to be an element of risk. You never have to search very hard to come across a story that’s all about an athlete who picked up an injury and is out of action for a while. However, while injuries may be an accepted risk when it comes to sports, some of these sports are risker than others.
The NHL lines site, Betway, has compiled a report that gives an insight into exactly which sports pose the most risk. While the seriousness of any injury of course matters, we’re going to be focusing on the number of them.
Ice hockey
When you look at ice hockey, and the NHL, it’s perhaps unsurprising that this is a sport that leads to a host of injuries. As a full-contact sport, it’s played at speed and comes with the added dangers of skates and pucks. However, this is a sport that’s heading in the right direction.
According to Betway’s report, the NHL reported 5,300 injuries over a five-year period. This means that it ranks better than any of the other sports that we’re going to look at here. The report also shows that the number of injuries has also fallen by around 14% over the last five years.
American Football
Let’s be honest, when you watch the NFL it has to be said that this sport is a little on the brutal side. That being the case, you’d probably expect there to be plenty of injuries being picked up. Well, according to the data obtained by Betway, you’d be right.
With over 7,600 injuries reported over five years, this is a sport where things just don’t seem to be improving. In fact, this is the only sport on our list where injuries are increasing year on year.
Baseball
Baseball is the second most injury-prone sport according to Betway. There were over 7,400 injuries reported over the same five-year period. What’s surprising here is the fact that this is a non-contact sport so you’d probably expect the number of injuries to be much lower.
One explanation for the number of injuries is the fact that this sport has longer seasons. That means that players’ bodies are under strain for longer periods and are given less time to recover.
Basketball
Basketball reported some 7,000 injuries over five years. If you know anything about this sport then you’ll be aware that the training regime is intense, to say the least. The fact that players start this regime at such a young age, it has been suggested that the body just isn’t ready for this intensity.
English Premier League football
When watching an EPL match you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is the sport that has the most injuries going. With players seeming to be on the floor, holding one body part or another, almost every five minutes, there always seems to be something going wrong. However, this sport has far fewer injuries than any of the others that we’ve just looked at.
