Surfing Ranks #2 in 'Hardest Sport to Play' Poll

In the end, surfing landed in the number two spot, leaving the top honor for “world’s hardest sport” to football, or in American parlance, soccer. But immediately, after the votes were tallied and the winner announced, controversy reigned.

Even Kelly Slater, the proverbial greatest surfer of all time, disagreed that surfing should rank so high on the list. Commenting on a post before the final results, Slater wrote:

“I wouldn’t rate soccer but I don’t play. I would say skating, free soloing, f1, MMA, gymnastics, etc are all at the cutting edge of abilities for humans.”

Then, once soccer was announced as the “hardest” – 70% of respondents voted for that, versus 30% for surfing – the commentary appeared to wildly disagree; most of the folks wrote in claiming that soccer only won due to its popularity, not its difficulty to play. Here’s a selection of the dissenters:

“football wins the popularity contest who would’ve thought”

“those who voted football. can I honestly ask WHY”

“Football may be one of the hardest to go pro but not hardest to play”

“People just voted for the sport they liked, not the hardest. I have no idea in what world soccer beats MMA”

“Throw a football player on a big wave and see what happens”

Of course, this study has its flaws. It’s totally unscientific. Surfing and soccer are incredibly different, in terms of sports and difficulty. And, like many commenters wrote, is it about going pro or simply practicing the sport?

In the United States, where soccer is notoriously less popular than Europe or pretty much anywhere else in the world, there are 29 teams in the MLS with around 30 players each. That’s roughly 870 players. On the World Surf League’s Championship Tour, there’s 18 women and 36 men (with some wildcards/injury replacements thrown in there).

Once again, those numbers are likely more related to popularity versus difficulty. But still, on the merit of simply practicing or “playing" the sport, are surfing and soccer at the top of the list as the two “hardest” in the world? Highly doubtful.