Toward the end of this year’s NCAA basketball tournaments, there were too many sports going on for me to keep up.

College basketball was crowning its champions, while Major League Baseball was just getting started, and the NBA and NHL were in their last stretch before the playoffs, plus outdoor track and field was ramping up, NASCAR and Formula 1 were having races, and there were some big fight cards happening in the combat sports. Then, somebody had the nerve to throw in the UFL, because apparently the NFL isn’t enough and we also need pro football in the spring.

I only have so much time and space to watch sports — charge it to having a family with three little kids who prefer Shrek and Donkey over Shohei Ohtani — which means I have to be picky with how I prioritize. And so that recent overflow of viewing options had me thinking: How would I rank my favorite sports?

I won’t count pro wrestling here, because although I have covered it for this site, and the sports media outlet I work for at my day job also covers it, obviously it’s not the same as non-scripted competitive sports. But for what it’s worth, had I included pro wrestling, it’d be in the my top five. On to the list…

***** *****

15. Tennis

I’ve been kinda-sorta watching tennis for most of my life, and yet I still cannot confidently explain how the scoring works — but it is consistently entertaining; a long, back-and-forth rally is one of the better showcases in sports of in-game drama building to a crescendo. Consider yourself fortunate if you’ve been able to witness this nearly-finished golden era of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal in men’s tennis, as well as follow Serena Williams’s career from start to finish on the women’s side.

Prominent Muslims in tennis: Ons Jabeur, Sania Mirza, Aravane Rezai

14. Team Handball

I stumbled onto team handball a couple of Olympics ago and was immediately hooked. It’s a combination of basketball, soccer, and lacrosse, bringing out the best elements of speed, skill, teamwork, and hand-eye coordination from each sport. If you’re an “old-head” basketball fan, team handball has all the passing, ball-handling and physical defense you used to like without any of those annoying dunks and 3-pointers.

Prominent Muslims: Islam Hassan, Ali Zein, Karim Handawy

13. Soccer

I know, I know … typical American here who doesn’t understand and can’t appreciate soccer. I don’t even call it by its proper name of football. How can the sport that ranks No. 1 for billions of people around the world rank 13th for me? In my defense, I don’t dislike soccer. I have nothing negative to say about soccer. It has a spot on this list because I do like it; but I just like some other sports more. And I have learned a lot more about the game since launching this site, since it’s so popular in the Muslim world.

Prominent Muslims: Mohamed Salah, Mesut Ozil, Karim Benzema, Paul Pogba, Yaya Toure, Demba Ba, Zinedine Zidane, Nadia Nadim, Nouhaila Benzina, Jessica Houara-d’Hommeaux

12. Breaking

It’s in the Olympics (or was in the Olympics, until further notice), so it counts as a sport to me. If you’re still not sure, think about it: competitive breaking is no different than gymnastics, figure skating, or diving, in that artistry and execution is scored by a panel of judges. Look beyond the corny Australian lady and you’ll find that the Paris Olympics event was pretty dope.

Prominent Muslims: Ali “Lilou” Ramdani, Manizha Talash, Bilal Mallakh, Fatima El-Mamouny

11. Bowling

Maybe it’s just another sign of my natural contrarianism, but golf is not going to be my retired-old-guy sport of choice: it’ll be bowling. When I say I come from a family of bowlers, it’s not that I’m related to anyone who’s a pro, it’s just that bowling was one of our go-to family gatherings and pretty much all of us bowl. This one’s purely about my own participation; I don’t watch bowling on TV or follow the elite competitors at all.

10. Hockey

I’m still learning a lot about the game, as I’m still in my infancy as a Seattle Kraken fan. I was able to attend a live NHL game last season (Kraken vs. Devils), and the experience is good as everyone says it is in-person. Bonus: Hockey fans don’t seem as collectively toxic as some fan bases of other sports I follow. They’ve managed to honor the past without letting nostalgia drive them to unreasonably dump on the current product. We need more of that in sports.

Prominent Muslims: Nazem Kadri, Nail Yakupov, Alain Nasreddine

9. MMA

Honestly, I like watching The Ultimate Fighter reality show more than I like watching mixed martial arts by itself; the personal stories that humanize the fighters on TUF get me invested in their fights more than the actual craft of MMA. Because if it was just about the fights, well, I can find other combat sports to watch the pure striking that I like without the BJJ/wrestling element of MMA that I’m not as into. There is some crossover appeal in watching MMA, too, as some of my all-time favorite kickboxers (most notably Cedric Doumbe and Alex Pereira) have transitioned to MMA.

Prominent Muslims: Khabib Nurmagomedov, Islam Makhachev, Belal Muhammad, Oumar “Reug Reug” Kane, Magomed Ankalaev, Dovlet Yagshimurado

‘The Ultimate Fighter’ Season 28

8. Weightlifting

The highest-ranking sport on this list that I only watch during the Olympics. I like simplicity in sports, and competitive weightlifting is really easy for anyone to follow. The super heavyweights are just as interesting and intense as the lightweights, and unlike with some sports, the men’s division is really no different than the women’s division. Whereas you’ll have people who love the NBA and hate the WNBA, or people who watch softball but don’t watch baseball, if someone is a fan of men’s weightlifting, they’re probably also a fan of women’s weighlifting, and vice versa.

Prominent Muslims: Hossein Rezazadeh, Ruslan Nurudinov, Behdad Salimi, Sara Ahmed, Mohamed Ehab, Abeer Abdelrahman, Akbar Djuraev

7. Auto Racing

I’ll lump them all together here: NASCAR, Formula 1, IndyCar, NHRA, motocross, Monster Jam. The speed. The adrenaline. The noise. The strategy. The tech. If I had to pick one as my favorite, I’d probably go with NASCAR, but F1 isn’t far behind. It helps that F1 races are often held late Saturday nights or early Sunday mornings (when everyone else in my house is asleep and I can have the TV to myself) and the races don’t last any longer than two hours. In other words, I can actually watch a whole F1 race and pay attention, which I can’t exactly do with NASCAR.

Prominent Muslims: Rio Haryanto, Fairuz Fauzy, Enaam Ahmed, Ahmad Al Harthy

6. Boxing

I’m not the Ring magazine-reading, Tuesday Night Fights-watching, handful-of-PPVs-a-year-buying fan that I used to be, but boxing is still high up on the list for me. During the 2024 Paris Olympics, I watched more Olympic/amateur-style boxing than I ever had before, in part because it’s become more of a hassle (and more expensive) to access top-level pro boxing these days than it’s ever been.

Prominent Muslims: Muhammad Ali, Bernard Hopkins, Devin Haney, Naseem Hamed, Amir Khan, Artur Beterbiev, Imane Khelif, Bakhodir Jalolov, Tina Rahimi

5. Baseball

Some say baseball is too slow and boring — and I was admittedly in that camp once upon a time — but now I can tell you this: As a work-from-home father of three loud children, I can really appreciate the slower pace, lower volume, and calming rhythm of baseball. When the ballgame on TV isn’t super intense, or when I’m not allowing my Seattle Mariners to drive me up the wall with anxiety, baseball can be perfect background noise or casual viewing when it needs to be.

Baseball has also given us some of the greatest sports movies and books: If you haven’t yet seen Sugar, go find it.

Prominent Muslims: Sam Khalifa, Farhan Zaidi, Rany Jazayerli

4. Track and Field

Hall of Fame sprinter Michael Johnson launched the Grand Slam track series in 2024 with the goal of increasing public interest in the sport during non-Olympic years, when it tends to retreat from the spotlight and merely exists as a niche sport. I’m not in Johnson’s target demographic, because I follow track and field just as closely between Olympic years as I do when it is on the world’s biggest stage. Want proof? I actually have a subscription to Track & Field News — the print magazine — and read it every month whether it’s indoor season, outdoor season, or the offseason.

Growing up, track and field was my No. 2 sport as a participant. I did one year of Little League and two years in high school; although I usually don’t say that I “ran track,” because while I did run some sprints and relays here and there, my main thing was the long jump. And I was pretty decent at it. My second-biggest sports regret is not dedicating more time and energy to long jump — but, hey, there’s always time for Masters track meets.

Prominent Muslims: Mo Farah, Sifan Hassan, Mutaz Essa Barshim, Dalilah Muhammad, Ihab Abdelrahman El Sayed

3. Basketball

I liked basketball growing up, but I didn’t love basketball until my adult years. As a kid, I rooted for the Seattle Supersonics and played a little bit of Little League, but basketball wasn’t my first or even my second sport. It was the most popular sport at my high school, but I was too busy with football and track and other extracurriculars to really get into it. Basketball was also the “front porch” sport at my college alma mater, but when I was in school we were competing at the Division II/NAIA level, so it wasn’t exactly a hot ticket on campus.

It wasn’t until I made the pilgrimage to “the Mecca of basketball” that I developed a love for the sport. My first full-time job out of college was in New York City, writing for Dime magazine. There, I was thrown deep into the basketball industry, from the NBA to the NCAA to high school, as well as NYC streetball culture. I was immersed in hoop, all day every day, for a solid five years; not just watching it, but living it and working in it, writing about it, getting to know famous and influential people who made their living on the court or in the front office or in basketball-related fields like apparel and media.

During that time I was in New York, my Sonics were taken from Seattle and relocated to Oklahoma. So while I haven’t had a full-time favorite NBA team for about 15 years, nor a big-time college program to call my own, basketball remains in contention for my overall favorite sport. It’s the sport that I’m probably most knowledgeable about in terms of its history, the names and numbers — all of that useful and useless trivia that drives fandom. Keeping it out of the top two? It might be my least favorite sport when it comes to the media and fan landscape. The “old school vs. new school” bickering is about as bad on social media as the “men vs. women” battles among miserable single people. NBA discourse in particular is kind of terrible in 2025, to the point where as much as I love watching the game, I hate listening to and reading some of the people whose opinions make it into my algorithms.

Prominent Muslims: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Jaylen Brown, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Kyrie Irving, Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, Jana El Alfy

My favorite player vs. my favorite team

2. Football

My first sports love. Football is my Dad’s favorite sport, so naturally it was also mine for as far back as I can remember. Whether it was playing football, watching football, reading football books, or collecting football cards, I was all football all the time by the age of 6, when I first tried to play Little League and was sent away because I was younger than the rules allowed. I tried again the next year, but didn’t meet the weight minimum for 7-year-olds. I was finally able to play when I was 8, and continued all the way through high school. (My biggest sports regret? Not trying to play football in college.)

Growing up in a football-loving city helped, although as a kid I pushed back against being Seattle Seahawks or Washington Huskies fan. Granted, UW being a national powerhouse during my childhood might be why I’ve always preferred college football over the NFL. (Same deal for college basketball over the NBA and WNBA.) As I got older, though, maybe I lost some of that stubbornness to go against the grain, because since settling in Las Vegas I’ve become a fan of the Raiders and UNLV football.

Did you ever make plans for your family before you actually had a family? Maybe you always envisioned taking your future kids to the zoo, or you already had their names picked out before they were conceived. Before I had kids, I knew that my son(s) would play football, just like my Dad knew I would. The game is a rite of passage — at least it was for my generation, and for many generations before mine. “We make men out here” is what I used to say about the football field. But then, as a society, we learned more about concussions, and my outlook on sports and masculinity evolved, and eventually I wasn’t so dead-set on my kids playing football. My twin boys are 4 years old now, so there’s plenty of time to make that decision, but football is no longer a requirement — which might factor into why it’s no longer my absolute favorite sport. That leads me to No. 1 on this list…

Prominent Muslims: Ameer Abdullah, Azeez Al-Shaair, Abdul Carter, Husain Abdullah, Muhammad Wilkerson

1. Kickboxing / Muay Thai

I have to put kickboxing (in all of its forms, most notably Muay Thai and Dutch style) in the top spot because it’s the one sport that I will watch intently for hours no matter who’s competing. It doesn’t have to be a championship fight; doesn’t have to be a matchup of stars; I don’t have to know who either fighter is and I’ll check it out. It’s the one sport that I never get tired of watching. I’ll buy a kickboxing pay-per-view with no hesitation, even if there’s just one match on the card that intrigues me (though, to be fair, kickboxing PPVs are never as expensive as higher-end boxing and pro wrestling PPVs). Watching kickboxing more often than not inspires me to go outside (well, go into my garage) and throw some hands, feet, elbows, and knees myself.

Perhaps it helps that I haven’t had as much time to get burned out on kickboxing. I didn’t get into the sport until I was in my 30s. I grew up on boxing, and I watched some MMA along the way, but I remember one late night stumbling onto a GLORY Kickboxing re-run on ESPN and just being fascinated. I’d seen kickboxing before, but it had never caught my attention like this. A few months after that I began training at a Muay Thai gym — today, the centerpiece of my home gym is a Muay Thai heavy bag. Kickboxing is what increased my interest in MMA and got me back into boxing after my interest had declined a bit.

And while I’ve become flexible on whether my kids play football, I am 100 percent making all three of them get involved in martial arts when they’re old enough. They can choose the discipline, but I’m no doubt going to nudge them toward what’s become my favorite sport.

Prominent Muslims: Badr Hari, Rodtang, Tyjani Beztati, Tarik Khbabez, Jamal Ben Saddik, Ruqsana Begum, Bahram Rajabzadeh, Beybulat Isaev