Other team sports

• Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin. Although it is not a very popular sport nationwide, it is quite popular in mid-Atlantic and New England and the box version of the game has exploded in the Upper Midwest states. All forms of lacrosse are increasing in national popularity. NLL and MLL are the national box and outdoor lacrosse leagues, respectively, and have increased their following in recent years. Also, many of the top Division I college lacrosse teams draw upwards of 7–10,000 for a game, especially in the Mid-Atlantic and New England areas. The NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship has historically ranked top in attendance of any NCAA championship game in any sport (the NCAA has never sanctioned an official championship in the highest level of football), although this is likely to change now that the NCAA requires a minimum capacity of 70,000 for men's basketball Final Four venues.
• Rugby union, common in other English-speaking nations, is not as well known in the United States. Rugby is played recreationally, professionally and in colleges, though it is not governed by the NCAA (see College rugby). There are an estimated 63,000 registered players,^[5] with more than a quarter being women. The semi-professional Rugby Super League is the premier domestic competition. The sport's worldwide governing body, the International Rugby Board (IRB), has created two international competitions as part of an attempt to grow the sport in North America. The first, the North America 4, included two American teams. It was superseded in 2009 by the Americas Rugby Championship, in which a "USA Select XV", effectively the second-level national side, competes. More recently the national side has been competing at the Rugby World Cup, and the country's national team in the sevens variation of the sport has been elevated to one of the 12 "core teams" in the annual IRB Sevens World Series.
• Rugby league is a small but quickly growing sport in the United States with an estimate of just over 1000 players. They plans to introduce a professional rugby league competition (National Rugby League USA) by 2011. Teams announced so far are Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Denver and Boston (though none have officially been confirmed yet). The current competition, the AMNRL, which is now starting to attract professional overseas based players, most notably former Queensland State of Origin player Daniel Wagon.^[6] The AMNRL currently has 11 teams based down the east Coast from Boston in the north to Jacksonville in the south. The United States national rugby league team (the Tomahawks) represent the USA in rugby league, they compete annually in the Atlantic Cup against Canada, Jamaica and South Africa.
• Australian rules football is governed by the United States Australian Football League in the U.S. and, though little-known in the country, it is also a developing sport with regular international competition against Canada.
• Curling is popular in northern states, possibly because of climate, proximity to Canada, or Scandinavian heritage. The national popularity of curling is growing after significant media coverage of the sport in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics.
• Gaelic football and hurling are governed by North American GAA and New York GAA. Like Australian rules football, they do not have a high profile but are developing sports, with New York fielding a representative team in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.
• Volleyball is also a notable sport in the United States, especially at the college and university levels. Unlike most Olympic sports which are sponsored widely at the collegiate level for both sexes, the support for college volleyball is dramatically skewed in favor of the women's game. Over 300 schools in NCAA Division I alone (the highest of three NCAA tiers) sponsor women's volleyball at the varsity level,^[7] while only 82 schools in all three NCAA divisions combined sponsor varsity men's volleyball, with only 22 of them in Division I.^[8][9][10]
• Inline hockey was invented by Americans as a way to play the sport in all climates. The PIHA is the league with the largest number of professional teams in the nation. Street hockey is a non-standard version of inline hockey played by amateurs in informal games.
• Water Polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores the most goals by getting the ball past the opposing team's goalkeeper into the net. Gameplay involves swimming, players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a net defended by a goalie. Water polo, therefore, has strong similarities to the land-based game of team handball. The frequency of 'man-up' (or 'power play') situations also draws comparisons with Ice hockey.
• Ultimate (originally Ultimate Frisbee) was initially popular with high school and college students, and many now continue to play in adult recreational leagues.
• Cricket, another common sport in Commonwealth countries, is not a popular sport in the U.S. Many amateur cricket leagues have been formed by Indian, Pakistani, Australian, South African, English and Caribbean (more specifically West Indian) immigrants, and as a result, the sport has made limited inroads into the mainstream sports community because of a large influx of migrants from cricketing countries who make up almost 16 million of the American population. Cricket used to be the most popular sport in America during the 18th century, 19th century and early 20th century, when it suffered a rapid decline. In fact the first intercollegiate tournament in America was a cricket tournament. The first annual Canada vs. USA cricket match, played since the 1840s, was attended by 10,000 spectators at Bloomingdale Park in New York. The USA vs. Canada cricket match is the oldest international sporting event in the modern world, predating even today's Olympic Games by nearly 50 years. USA participated in the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy where they were comprehensively beaten in matches against Australia and New Zealand.
• Team handball, a common sport in European countries, is not a popular sport in the U.S. The sport is mostly played in the country on the amateur level. Handball is not a NCAA sport, but is played in the Summer Olympics. The sport's governing body is USA Team Handball.
• Roller derby is a fast-growing contact sport played on roller skates. As of September 2009, there were 350 women's, men's, and junior leagues in the U.S.A.^[11] The sport is also played in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. The sport's national governing body is USA Roller Sports, with the Women's Flat Track Derby Association being the largest association of U.S./Canadian leagues. There are roller derby leagues in most metropolitan areas in the U.S. The vast majority of these are flat track roller derby leagues, with a handful of banked track derby leagues as well. Women's leagues make up the lion's share of them, there were 28 men's and co-ed leagues and 16 junior leagues as of September 2009. Popularized by the 2009 film Whip It.
• Dodgeball is played recreationally by children and adults alike. Was popularized by the 2004 film comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
• Kickball is also played recreationally by children and adults, especially at the elementary school level. Its rules are largely identical to baseball, except that no bat is used and instead a large rubber ball is rolled along the ground for the "batter" to kick.

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