Which Sports Fans Use the Most Marijuana? New Research Compares Cannabis Use Among Football, Baseball, Basketball and Soccer Fans—and Reveals Surprising Game-Day Habits.
Sports fans have their rituals: jerseys, lucky hats, tailgate parties and a favorite seat on the couch. For some, cannabis is also part of game day. But which sport fans use the most marijuana when they head to a sporting event?
A recent study offers some surprising answers. Ice hockey fans reported the highest rate of cannabis use at games among the U.S. sports surveyed, edging out baseball, basketball and football fans. The research, published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, surveyed more than 2,500 sports fans in the United States and the United Kingdom
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According to the survey, 21.5% of U.S. ice hockey fans reported using cannabis at a game. Baseball fans followed at 20.1%, with basketball fans at 19.4% and football fans at 17.4%.
The differences are interesting, but they don’t necessarily mean hockey fans consume more marijuana overall. The figures measure reported cannabis use at sporting events, not how often fans use cannabis at home or elsewhere.
Still, the findings suggest marijuana has become part of the game-day experience for a portion of fans across several major American sports.
Football remains a familiar setting for tailgating, food, drinks and socializing before kickoff. While football fans in the study reported the lowest rate of game-day cannabis use among the four U.S. sports surveyed, nearly one in six still reported using it at games.
Baseball’s leisurely pace and long afternoons at the ballpark may seem like a natural fit for cannabis culture. Baseball fans reported a 20.1% rate of cannabis use at games, second only to hockey in the U.S. survey.
Basketball landed close behind, at 19.4%. With its fast pace, arena atmosphere and strong connections to music and popular culture, the sport has a visible relationship with cannabis culture. But the survey doesn’t establish why basketball fans use cannabis or whether the sport itself influences their choices.
Soccer fans in the United Kingdom reported lower cannabis use at games than the U.S. sports groups surveyed. In the study, 6.1% of British soccer fans said they used cannabis at games, compared with 5.3% of rugby fans and 1.4% of cricket fans.
Those figures should be read in context. The researchers surveyed fans in two different countries, with different sporting traditions and patterns of drug use. The results don’t establish soccer fans worldwide are less likely to use marijuana than American football, baseball or basketball fans.
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Wrestling has a distinctive fan culture, but there isn’t a directly comparable figure for wrestling fans in this study. The NCAA has published cannabis-use data for college wrestlers, but those are athletes—not fans—and shouldn’t be used to rank wrestling audiences against other sports.
The distinction matters: What athletes use and what fans use are two different questions.
The study found cannabis was the most commonly reported drug among U.S. fans who said they used drugs at sporting events. This doesn’t mean most fans use marijuana; it means cannabis was the leading substance among the subset who reported drug use.
As cannabis becomes more accepted across American culture, its place in sports fandom is worth watching. For some fans, it may be part of a social ritual; for others, game day still means beer, snacks and cheering until the final whistle.
So, who takes the top spot? In this survey, hockey fans reported the most cannabis use at U.S. sporting events, followed by baseball, basketball and football fans. Whether the ranking holds for fans’ overall marijuana habits is a question researchers have yet to answer.
