The least popular Olympic sport can be measured by TV ratings, ticket sales, and global participation, and it changes by country, but several sports consistently rank at the bottom for viewership and attendance. In recent Summer Olympics, the least watched sports have included modern pentathlon, which combines fencing, swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting, and cross-country running, because its complex rules and limited global participation make it hard to follow, and it has very low ticket demand. Race walking, despite being an athletics event, also draws very small crowds and low TV ratings due to its slow pace and frequent disqualifications. In Winter Olympics, sports like Nordic combined and some cross-country skiing distance events tend to have lower global viewership outside of Scandinavia and Germany. For Paris 2024, breaking, also called breakdancing, debuted but had modest viewership and will not return in LA 2028 partly due to limited appeal. According to NBC and IOC data, sports like handball, water polo, and field hockey also have relatively low US viewership compared to gymnastics, swimming, and track, which dominate ratings. Popularity is subjective and regional, for example handball is huge in Europe but obscure in the US, so the least popular title depends on market, but modern pentathlon and race walking are frequently cited as least popular globally and are at risk of being removed.
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