Jamaica Sports – The Most Popular Sports in Jamaica
Wondering what sports the Jamaicans like to play?
Discover everything about the most popular sports in Jamaica in this post. 🏃♀️
The Most Popular Jamaican Sports
Find below Jamaica national sports, ranked by popularity:
| Rank | Sport |
|---|---|
| 1 | Athletics |
| 2 | Cricket |
| 3 | Football |
| 4 | Rugby league |
| 5 | Basketball |
| 6 | Netball |
| 7 | Bobsleigh |
| 8 | Rugby union |
So there you have them, the most popular sports in Jamaica! Keep reading below for more information about each sport in Jamaica.
What is the National Sport of Jamaica?
The national sport of Jamaica is cricket. Maybe this will surprise you, but Jamaica has quite a unique sport as a national pastime.
The Jamaican national cricket team is extremely successful, and the sport has always been very popular on the island.
Learn More About Jamaica Popular Sports
Jamaica is an island country located in the Caribbean Sea, around 145 km / 90 mi south of Cuba. Its capital city is Kingston, which counts more than 662,000 inhabitants (but more than 1,190,000 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 Jamaica popular sports, and I hope you will love them:
Athletics
The most popular sport in Jamaica is athletics.
The famous stereotype saying Jamaicans are amazing athletes… is actually true. Athletics are extremely appreciated in the country, which produced some of the greatest runners in the history of the sport: who has never heard of Usain Bolt, 8 times Olympic gold medalist, 11 times World Championship winner, and the first athlete to simultaneously hold the 100 m, 200 m and 4 x 100 m world records (and still holds all of these to this day)?
He is not the only incredible runner from the island though: you may have heard of Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake, Veronica Campbell, and Merlene Ottey.
Famous Jamaican Athletics players: Usain Bolt, Merlene Ottey, Arthur Wint, Veronica Campbell, Herbert McKenley, Donald Quarrie, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Asafa Powell, Elaine Thompson, Yohan Blake, Deon Hemmings
Cricket
The second most popular sport in Jamaica is cricket.
I have already told you that cricket is the national sport on the island, but it is also one of the most popular ones. It arrived in the country after the British colonized Jamaica, and it used to be a sport played by the elite.
Nowadays, some of the old-school rules are still here: the teams are divided into gentlemen and players, each of them having their own locker room. It changed a bit though since only gentlemen could captain a team, and players were paid to play, but this is not the case anymore.
Famous Jamaican Cricket players: Courtney Walsh, Michael Holding, Chris Gayle, Jimmy Adams, Marlon Samuels, Jeff Dujon, Lawrence Rowe, Alf Valentine, Collie Smith, Andre Russell
Football
The third most popular sport in Jamaica is football.
Football is used to being part of at the very least the top 2 most popular sports in any given country. In Jamaica, it is taking a huge hit by “only” being third.
The sport is on the rise though, and might very well replace cricket and maybe even athletics at the top of the standings. It is played by both casual players (you will see many Jamaicans play football in the streets of Kingston), amateurs, and professionals. The first division football league in the country is called the Jamaica National Premier League.
Famous Jamaican Football players: Leon Bailey, Ricardo Gardner, Ian Goodison, Theodore Whitmore, Luton Shelton, Alan Cole, Donovan Ricketts, Robert Earle, Ricardo Fuller, Deon Burton
Rugby league
The fourth most popular sport in Jamaica is rugby league.
Quite surprisingly, the variant of rugby that is more popular in Jamaica is not rugby union, but rugby league. The main difference between these two sports is that the latter is played with 13 players instead of 15.
The sport has been around in Jamaica since 2006, and the Jamaica national rugby league team is made up of players who play in Jamaica and come from UK professional and semi-professional clubs.
Famous Jamaican Rugby league players: Kyle Eastmond, Ashton Golding, Regan Grace, Luis Johnson, Michael Lawrence, Reece Lyne, Lewis Tierney, Jordan Turner
Basketball
The fifth Jamaica most popular sport is basketball.
Basketball is the sport with the most promising future on the island: it is the fastest-growing sport, and some great players come from Jamaica, especially Patrick Ewing, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. Other notable players include Roy Hibbert, Jerome Jordan, and Samardo Samuels.
The best performance of the Jamaican basketball team was in 2013, during the FIBA Americas Championship: they beat the 2 former world champions Brazil and Argentina.
Famous Jamaican Basketball players: Nick Richards, Pat Ewing, Patrick Ewing, Rumeal Robinson, Samardo Samuels, Jerome Jordan, Omari Johnson, Wayne Sappleton, Nick Richards, Roy Hibbert
Netball
The sixth most popular sport in Jamaica is netball.
If you do not know about this sport, it is basically a ball sport played by two teams of seven players with raider goal rigs at each end, and players can hold onto the ball for a maximum of 3 seconds.
This one is most popular among Jamaican women, who are extremely proficient at the sport. In fact, netball is the most popular women’s sport on the island. The national women’s team is called the Sunshine Girls, and they have participated in the Netball World Championships every year since 1963. Their best performance was finishing third in 1991, 2003 and 2007.
Famous Jamaican Netball players: Jhaniele Fowler, Romelda Aiken, Shamera Sterling, Shanice Beckford, Kasey Evering, Simone Forbes, Carla Borrego, Shimona Nelson, Elaine Davis, Nicole Aiken-Pinnock
Bobsleigh
The seventh most popular sport in Jamaica is bobsleigh.
Many of you have probably seen Cool Runnings, a 1993 American comedy sports film that pictured the story of the Jamaica national bobsleigh team’s debut in competition at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. While the story was loose, it was a true story.
Even though this is very surprising, with the tropical environment that Jamaica lies in, there is a national bobsleigh team. They qualified for the Winter Olympics of 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2014. A women’s team was also founded in 2018.
Famous Jamaican Bobsleigh players: Porscha Morgan, Wynsome Cole, KayMarie Jones, Salcia Slack, Chris Stokes, Dudley Stokes, Natalia Stokes
Rugby union
The eighth and last most popular sport in Jamaica is rugby union.
Last but not least, rugby union enjoys a smaller amount of fans than rugby league in Jamaica, but it still has a consistent fanbase. The sport is growing at the moment and might become one of the more popular ones. There are currently more than 2,000 registered players on the island.
The Jamaica Rugby Union is the governing body of rugby union, and the national rugby union team is currently ranked 66th in the world. It is on the rise since it used to be as low as 84th not too long ago.
Number of Rugby union licensed players in Jamaica: 2,090
Famous Jamaican Rugby union players: Rhodri Adamson, Nathan Annakie, Nyle Beckett, Anthony Bingham, Tyler Bush, Mason Caton-Brown, Matthew Coore, Oshane Edie, Mikel Facey
So there you have them, these were all the most popular sports in Jamaica. I hope you enjoyed them and that you learned something new today. Keep reading to get a few more facts.
Is cricket dying in Jamaica?
Cricket used to be more popular than it is now, there is no doubt about it. However, the sport is definitely not dead for now.
The main issue is that it is not very appealing to the Jamaican youth, which endangers its future, but it still has a sizable following, and will probably always be part of the national identity. With the recently introduced 20-20 new format, maybe the sport can have a new life in the foreseeable future.
Is soccer big in Jamaica?
Recently, soccer or football has been gaining popularity in Jamaica. It seems hard to dethrone athletics (and cricket for now), but the sport is definitely growing a lot.
It is already one of the most popular sports on the island, and might very well become more than that very quickly. Watch out for Jamaican football players in the upcoming years! Even Usain Bolt tried to play the sport professionally for a bit after his retirement in 2017.
More Sport Facts!
Loved these Jamaica sports facts? Want to see what sports are the most popular in other countries?
Then check out these posts:
Or click here to see ALL the facts up on the blog! Spoiler alert: there’s A LOT of them.
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