Philippines Sports – The Most Popular Sports in the Philippines

The Most Popular Filipino Sports

Find below The Philippines national sports, ranked by popularity:

So there you have them, the most popular Filipino sports! Keep reading below for more information about each sport in The Philippines.

What is the National Sport of The Philippines?

The national sport of The Philippines is Arnis. Since July 27th, 2009, arnis has been the national sport of Philippines. It is a martial art that is also known as Kali or Eskrima. Fighters use sticks, knives, and bladed weapons as well as improvised weapons in the sport.

Learn More About The Philippines Popular Sports

The Philippines is an archipelago made of 7,640 islands. It is located in Southeast Asia, and it has a very diverse community. Its capital city is Manila, which has more than 1,846,500 inhabitants (but more than 24,100,000 if you include the metropolitan area!).

An interesting part of the country that I wanted to tackle is its most popular sports. In light of that, I have listed all the Philippines popular sports, and I hope you will love them:

Basketball

The most popular sport in the Philippines is, by far and away, basketball. While it is quite rare for basketball to be the #1 sport in a country, it is the case in the Philippines. Ever since the sport was introduced in the country by Americans during the colonial era, it has never stopped growing until now. Filipinos are crazy about basketball, and the men’s national team made its debut in the Summer Olympics in 1936.

The oldest basketball league in Asia is the Filipino’s.

Famous Filipino Basketball players: Allan Caidic, Alvin Patrimonio, Johnny Abarrientos, Benjie Paras, Robert Jaworski, Ramon Fernandez, William Adornado, James Yap, Carlos Loyzaga

Boxing

The second most popular sport in Philippines is boxing. Boxing is extremely popular in the Philippines, and the country has produced many of the most successful boxers of all time, like Francisco Guilledo alias Pancho Villa, Ceferino Garcia, Manny Pacquiao, and Nonito Donaire.

The sport is the most popular individual one, and talented fighters continuously emerge from the archipelago. More precisely, the Philippines have produced 44 major world champions, if you include those of Filipino heritage. 8 out of the 12 total Olympic medals of the country come from boxing.

Famous Filipino Boxing players: Nonito Donaire, Manny Pacquiao, Flash Elorde, Ceferino Garcia, Little Dado, Gerry Peñalosa, Donnie Nietes, Pancho Villa, Luisito Espinosa

Tennis

The third most popular sport in the Philippines is tennis. Quite surprisingly, tennis is one of the most popular sports in the Philippines, even though it is usually reserved for the upper classes. Considering how poor the country is, this is definitely peculiar.

Anyway, the governing body of tennis in the archipelago is the Philippine Tennis Association. There is a Philippines Davis Cup team as well as a Philippines Fed Cup team. The best result of the national team is reaching the World Group Play-offs in 1991.

Famous Filipino Tennis players: Felicisimo Ampon, Cecil Mamiit, Francis Casey Alcantara, Eric Taino, Dyan Castillejo, Manny Tolentino

Football

The fourth most popular sport in the Philippines is football. Football is taking a huge hit by not even making it to the top 3 in the Philippines. The most popular sport on the planet is not used to being only #4, but even though it is growing in the archipelago, it is not that popular.

The sport dates back to the 1890s, and the national team played its first matches against China and Japan before World War II. Now, the Philippine Football Federation oversees the sport.

Famous Filipino Football players: Paulino Alcántara, Neil Etheridge, Philip Younghusband, Stephan Schröck, Emelio Caligdong, Alexander Borromeo, Anton del Rosario, Chris Greatwich

Billiards

The fifth most popular sport in the Philippines is billiards. Believe it or not, billiards is an extremely popular sport in the country. In fact, it is arguably the sport that gave the Philippines the most success. The country is also considered the pool capital of the world.

Pool’s greatest of all time Efren Reyes comes from the Philippines. He won more than 70 international titles, is nicknamed “The Magician” for his exceptional talent at the game, and won 4 World 8-ball championships among many other titles.

Famous Filipino Billiards players: Efren Reyes, Francisco Bustamante, Dennis Orcollo, Ronato Alcano, Chezka Centeno, Rubilen Amit, Lee Vann Corteza, Johann Chua, Warren Kiamco, Antonio Gabica

Volleyball

The sixth most popular sport in the Philippines is volleyball. Overall, volleyball is widely appreciated in many Asian countries, and it is also the case in the Philippines. The fanbase is growing in the country, especially among universities and colleges. It has been around since 1910 when the Philippines was an American territory.

When it comes to international competition, the country participates in tournaments like the Southeast Asian Games and the Olympic Games. Semi-professional leagues have also emerged, mainly the Philippine Super Liga and the Premier Volleyball League.

Famous Filipino Volleyball players: Alyssa Valdez, Denden Lazaro-Revilla, Jia Morado, Kim Fajardo, Mika Reyes, Aleona Denise Santiago, Aby Maraño, Rachel Ann Daquis, Victonara Galang

Ice hockey

The seventh most popular sport in the Philippines is ice hockey. Yes, the Philippines has a tropical climate, and yes this is not a joke. Ice hockey is quite popular in the country, and several artificial ice rinks have been built over the years.

While there are only 5 clubs and 211 registered players in the archipelago, the sport is surprisingly growing, and more and more Filipinos enjoy watching it. However, the main issue is that it is too expensive to play ice hockey, and this hinders its growth enormously.

Number of Ice hockey licensed players in The Philippines: 211

Famous Filipino Ice hockey players: Carl Montano, Jose Iñigo Cadiz, Jon David Samson, Benjamin Imperial, Jan Aro Regencia, Julius Santiago, Francois Gautier, Steven Füglister

Athletics

The eighth most popular sport in the Philippines is athletics. Its governing body is the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association, or PATAFA. The first international competition that the Philippines participated in was the Far Eastern Games, in 1913. Their first Olympic Games appearance dates back to 1924, and it has been the case since then with the exception of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

The country has won 2 bronze medals at the Olympic games, in 1932 (Simeon Toribio, men’s high jump) and in 1936 (Miguel White, 400 m hurdles).

Famous Filipino Athletics players: Lydia de Vega, Eduardo Buenavista, Isidro del Prado, Marestella Sunang, Eric Cray, Hector Begeo, Elma Muros, Agrippina de la Cruz, Lerma Gabito

Weightlifting

The ninth most popular sport in the Philippines is weightlifting. The sport has very recently seen an explosion in terms of popularity because of Hidilyn Diaz. Yes, single-handedly thanks to her, as she won the Philippines’ first Olympic Games gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

The weightlifter has won many titles over the span of her career, but 2021 was definitely her year. She is also an airwoman because she was recruited into the Philippine Air Force in 2013.

Famous Filipino Weightlifting players: Hidilyn Francisco Diaz

Aerobics

The tenth most popular sport in the Philippines is aerobics. In case you don’t know what it is, aerobics is basically a physical exercise that matches rhythmic aerobic exercise and stretching and strength training. The goal of the sport is to improve all elements of fitness, from flexibility to cardiovascular fitness.

In the Philippines, aerobics is a very popular discipline, though it is obviously not a competitive one. Filipinos still love doing some aerobics once in a while as a recreation.

Martial arts

The eleventh most popular sport in the Philippines is martial arts. Fighting sports are massively growing all around the planet… and all around the Philippines. Even though they have always been part of the culture, and will most likely always be, martial arts are very popular in the country.

The national sport, arnis, is obviously one of them, but there are more, like the most famous mixed martial arts (or MMA), wrestling sports, and other traditional martial arts. Some of these came during the colonial era, others appeared long before.

Famous Filipino Martial arts players: Brandon Vera, Eduard Folayang, Mark Striegl, Stephen Loman, Denice Zamboanga

Rugby union

The twelfth most popular sport in the Philippines is rugby union. While rugby union is recent in the Philippines (the Philippine Rugby Football Union was founded in 1998), the sport is growing despite it still being a minor one.

There are 12 schools spread throughout the archipelago and 10 teams, and they all compete in regular tournaments. The nickname of the national Filipino rugby union team is the Volcanoes, and they compete in international competitions like the Asia Rugby Championship as well as the Asian Sevens Series.

Famous Filipino Rugby union players: Rod Davies, Marcus Smith, Craig Wing, Simon Gabion-Sheehan, Kingsley Ballesteros, Ned Stephenson, Daniel Matthews, Tom Gunn

American football

The thirteenth and last most popular sport in the Philippines is American football. Finally, the last sport on this list is an American one. It is even more recent than rugby union since the first league in the country lasted from 2009 to 2015. The next one, the Philippine-American Football League, was founded afterward in 2016.

There is a men’s national team, but the most notorious Filipino American football players were recruited into the National Football League in the United States. This includes Eugene Amano, Tim Tebow, Roman Gabriel, and Steve Slaton, among many others.

Famous Filipino American football players: Eugene Amano, Doug Baldwin, Tedy Bruschi, Matt Castelo, Tim Tebow, Roman Gabriel, Chris Gocong, Aaron Francisco, Jordan Dizon

So there you have them, these were all the most popular sports in Philippines. I hope you enjoyed them and that you learned something new today.

In case you want to learn more about sports in other countries, feel free to keep reading, as I still have lots of things to tell you about:

More Sport Facts!

Loved these Philippines sports facts? Want to see what sports are the most popular in other countries?

Then check out these posts:

• Famous Sports in South Korea
• Famous Sports in Vietnam
• Famous Sports in Singapore

Or click here to see ALL the facts up on the blog! Spoiler alert: there’s A LOT of them.

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