Snowballin: More people hitting the slopes than ever before

2/24/24 7:00PM

Snowballin’

‍Strapping yourself to two planks of wood, or the modern equivalent — usually a mix of carbon fiber, wood, plastic, and steel — and hurling yourself down the side of a mountain may not sound like everyone’s idea of a good time, but America’s enjoyment of alpine sport seems to be snowballing into a love affair.

Indeed, in the 2021/22 season, the National Ski Areas Association reported a new high of 60.7 million visits to ski areas in America — a record that only lasted one year, as the subsequent season recorded an astonishing 65.4 million visits.

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Tom Jones7/10/26

The most watched soccer match in US history got less than a third of the views the Super Bowl did

Between a top-spot finish in the group stage, a sweeping performance against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, and the president’s controversial intervention, Monday evening’s USMNT game against Belgium had, to put it lightly, shaped up into a box-office clash.

And though the US players’ performance on the pitch might not have lived up to the high drama off it, American soccer fans certainly showed up. According to early estimates, the 4-1 defeat against Belgium was the most watched soccer telecast in US history, hauling some 40 million viewers on average across the coverage on Fox and Telemundo.

That may be a record tally in the US for the sport that much of the world calls some variant of “football” — besting the 36.2 million who tuned in to watch the team’s previous knock-out match — but it’s still peanuts in comparison to the sport that shares the same name in the States.