Spain's most popular sports

Sports and outdoor activity in general are a huge part of Spain's culture – for participants as well as spectators. A high percentage of the population engages regularly in at least one sporting activity; some do not, but are very likely to be a fan of live or TV-based sports of some description.

Although Spain does have its own traditional sports, the country has a major presence in many popular international ones, with some of the world's greatest superstars in certain sports being Spanish.

Children in Spain are actively encouraged to take part in sport. Schools promote sports heavily, and any youngsters who show real aptitude for their favourite activity will be able to train to the highest level they are capable of, without having to travel far. Children's sports clubs are very serious and dedicated, and if their young members are willing and able to excel, will be given enormous support.

Whether you're looking at taking up a new activity for yourself or your child, or are just seeking a conversation-starter among your local community, here's an overview of Spain in sports to get you started.

Football

Nearly every town has its own football club, with categories for the youngest children up to veterans. Some clubs are more famous than others – Real Madrid and FC Barcelona (or Barça) need no introduction, but wherever you live, you can probably watch your nearest UD (Unión Deportiva) or CF (Club de Fútbol) in a weekend match, or join them as a player.

Professional football, as a spectator sport, has a massive following in Spain. The biggest clubs form La Liga, or the national premier league, and matches are shown on TVs in bars across the country. The international nature of football at its highest level means it transcends conversational borders, and the Spanish national team is about as famous as you can get. The women's FIFA World Cup and the men's UEFA Euro titles are currently held by Spain.

Although women's professional football seems to be a relatively new concept – and not all Spain's largest clubs have a women's side as yet – Spanish ladies have been at the sharp end of the game for decades. Spain has had a national women's team since the 1970s.

Basketball

US-based basketball legends and NBA superstar brothers Pau and Marc Gasol are household names, but Spain's national men's and women's teams have enjoyed enormous success. The Spanish version of the NBA is the ACB, or Basketball Clubs Association (Asociación de Clubes de Baloncesto) which organises the national premier league, La Liga. At present, the men's league comprises 18 clubs, and the women's, 16.

Spain's national men's team won four European Championships between 2009 and 2022, Olympic silver medals in 1984, 2008 and 2012, and world championship titles in 2006 and 2019.

The women's team is similarly decorated. A silver at the Rio 2016 Olympics and in the 2014 world championships, they have been European champions four times between 1993 and 2019, and runners up twice, in 2007 and 2023.

Sports centres everywhere in Spain have basketball clubs and local teams, so wherever you live, you can join them or watch a match.

Tennis

Nearly all Spanish towns, however small, have a sports centre, and where they do, they will have at least one tennis court. Residential complexes, or 'urbanisations', often have public tennis courts for hire – and wherever a tennis star was born, there'll be a professional-level training academy. These include the Rafael Nadal tennis school in Manacor, Mallorca, and the Club de Tenis in Jávea, northern Alicante province, founded by former ATP world number three David Ferrer.

If you prefer tennis as a spectator sport, you can rely on Spanish players to give you an exciting viewing experience. In 2017, the ATP and WTA world number ones were Spanish at the same time – Rafael Nadal, and that year's Wimbledon winner, Garbiñe Muguruza. The latter's coach, Conchita Martínez, won Wimbledon in 1994, as did Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario in the doubles event the following year.

As for Rafael Nadal – a formidable rival to global legends Roger Federer and Novak Djoković – the 14-times French Open winner and Olympic gold medallist recently retired with a total of 22 Grand Slam singles titles, the second highest total ever. All eyes are now on the latest generation of Spanish tennis, with Carlos Alcaraz already tipped to be 'the next Rafa Nadal', and Ane Mintegi having won the Wimbledon Juniors in 2021 at age 17.

Pádel

Although often considered a traditionally-Spanish sport, pádel was 'invented' in México, its name is a calque of the English 'paddle', and it is very modern.

Back in 1960, Mexican Enrique Corcuera created a type of tennis where players use the walls as well as the ground to bounce the rubber ball off, and where racquets are short-handled, flat, plastic, and with multiple holes on the surface, and a wrist-strap or cord to be used at all times.

The game came to Spain in 1974, through one of Corcuera's influential friends – Prince Alfonso Hohenlohe-Langenberg, a German-Spanish property developer who founded numerous Costa del Sol tourism complexes. The Prince discovered pádel when visiting Corcuera in México, and set up courts when he returned to Marbella. Argentine millionaire Julio Menditegui, a regular visitor to Marbella, became hooked on pádel during a trip there in 1975, and launched it in his home country.

Nowadays, it is played in over 75 countries through 35 national federations on five continents, and is officially the world's fastest-growing sport. The World Padel Tour (WPT) was superseded in 2021 by the Premier Padel league, and an estimated 18 million people play it regularly.

Spain continues to be the world leader, with 14,000 pádel courts and 3,811 pádel clubs – its nearest rival being Italy, with 3,513 courts and 1,760 clubs. This means that, wherever you are in Spain, you will have the facilities locally to learn the game and play it regularly.

Golf

If you enjoy a round of golf, Spain is your destination. Wherever you are, you're not far from a golf course, and almost certainly one of professional calibre. You're most likely to find the largest choice and best facilities in the key tourism areas, in coastal provinces such as Málaga, Cádiz, Huelva, Murcia, Alicante, Valencia, the Balearic and Canary Islands, Cantabria, and Asturias, with 18-hole and 27-hole courses available for hire that are used for international competition.

Many of these allow members of the public to practise on the driving range for free or for a very small fee. In fact, the province of Málaga holds the record for the most golf courses in Europe.

Many golf courses in Spain are designed by top professionals. These professionals include the late legend Seve Ballesteros, his fellow world number one Jon Rahm, José María Olazábal and former world number two Sergio García. Top women players include Spain's first-ever female professional Elvira Larrazábal, and nine-times national champion Carlota Ciganda. If being close to a golf course is a major attraction for you when looking for a home in Spain, use our Find your place page to find municipalities close to a golf course.

Cycling

Professional cyclists from every continent clear their diaries for the 'big three' annual races: The Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, and the Vuelta a España. They are all equally famous, and if you live in Spain, you're very likely to have been able to watch 'la Vuelta' without leaving your home province – or even your street. Different stages are held over different routes throughout the mainland each year, meaning there's every chance that a pelotón could come tearing through your town one day.

Famous Spanish names in cycling include Miguel Induráin and Alberto Contador, both of whom figure in the top 10 most successful in history. Not even counting the Paralympics and triathlon, Spain has produced 16 Olympic medal-winning cyclists including Induráin, of whom two are women - Margarita Fullana and Leire Olaberria.

Cycling is a major everyday amateur sport in Spain, and if you're a serious participant, you will probably find a competitive event close to home at least once a year. If not, you're in good company anyway, and will have no shortage of facilities. More and more towns are building cycle lanes to encourage emissions-free local travel, and given how the majority of Spain is rural, off-road cycling routes are found everywhere. For those who like a challenge, Spain is ideal, since it is the most mountainous country in the European Union.

Swimming

For those who live in Spain and have no access to a beach, being close to a swimming pool is almost a necessity in summer. Spanish residents spend a lot of the hottest months in the sea, pools, rivers or lakes, purely for relief – so it stands to reason that swimming is one of the country's most popular sports.

In Spain, most children learn to swim at a very young age, either through school or extra-curricular swimming classes at their local sports centre – so it is extremely rare to meet a Spaniard who cannot swim. In fact, swimming is one of the sports Spain does best at in Olympic and Paralympic Games, taking home most of their medals for either water-based activities, cycling or athletics. Probably the best-known Spanish swimmer is the multiple medal-winning Mireia Belmonte.

Handball

Traditional Spanish variations of handball throughout history and across regions come under a long list of names, although the country also competes in the internationally-recognised version. To date, Spain has won four Olympic bronze medals in 'standard' handball.

One version of handball in Spain is unique to the east-coast region of the Comunidad Valenciana, where it has been been played for over 2,000 years – including by celebrities and royalty from the 14^th century. Known as pilota valenciana, it is similar to tennis without the racquet, played between teams of between two and five a side. Traditionally, it takes place in the street, although since Mediaeval times, pilota valenciana has often been played in a long, narrow court called a trinquete. Most professionals in the sport play a version called raspall, typically two-a-side and where competitors are allowed to scrape the ground to retrieve the ball.

The Canary Islands' own version of handball is pelotamano – literally, the Spanish translation of 'handball' – played five-a-side using a leather ball and a compacted-soil outdoor court. The earliest-known pelotamano match was played in Teguise in the year 1616.

Another traditional handball format is pelota vasca, or euskal pilota, which is native to the Basque Country and its neighbouring regions, but played up to world championship level. It can be played with flat, short-handled wooden bats, where it is similar to squash: A rubber ball bounced off a wall known as a frontis, in singles or doubles games, or with hands only. Believed to be the precursor to most modern-day ball sports, pelota vasca has 15 different disciplines, played by hand, with bats, or both. One of these, frontón largo or Jai-Alai, uses a longer (54-metre) court and a cesta punta, or scoop-shaped bat made from basket material. Another, called frontenis, uses tennis racquets.

Whilst frontenis is not an Olympic sport, a non-official tournament with medals was played as an 'exhibition sport' in Barcelona in 1992; otherwise, it is played at world championship level between competitors from Spain, France, and parts of Latin America.

Spain's first-ever Olympic gold medal, at its first-ever Games, was in Jai-Alai: Duo Francisco Villota and José de Amézola won it in Paris in 1900.

Motorsport

Whilst some international motorsports have failed to take off in Spain – such as Speedway – the country is in a class of its own in others. Formula 1 Grand Prix racing driver Fernando Alonso is widely held to be among the greatest on earth, and is only one step away from being just the second person in history to complete the so-called motorsport 'triple crown' (Le Mans 24-Hour, the Monaco Grand Prix, and the Indianapolis 500) after the UK's Graham Hill. A generation on, all eyes are now on Spain's Carlos Sainz Junior, who is showing huge promise.

MotoGP motorbike racing is almost dominated by Spain. Legends such as Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa have recently retired, but the younger prodigy Marc Márquez shows little sign of slowing down. After becoming the youngest rookie to win the world championship in 2013 – at age 20 – he would go on to win it in five of the ensuing six years.

To watch either live, you might be closer to an international venue than you thought. The MotoGP season ends with the Valencia Grand Prix at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Cheste (Valencia province), whilst the circuit in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz province), named after late 13-times world champion Ángel Nieto, is often dubbed 'the international cathedral of motorsport'. Valencia briefly had a Formula 1 street circuit, but the F1 venue in Montmeló, near Barcelona, is still in use every season.

Watersports

Watersports celebrities in Spain include Olympic medallists David Cal, Saúl Craviotto and Maialén Chourraut in canoeing and kayaking.

Sailing is easier to get into in Spain than you may think. Most large coastal towns have a yacht club, and you can book lessons from beginner level without needing your own craft. Kite-surfing, paddle-surf, windsurfing, kayaking, scuba-diving and snorkelling are ubiquitous in coastal areas, with numerous watersports schools offering courses at every level, and companies running organised excursions. Several regions a long way from the sea have also blue-flagged inland beaches, where all these activities are easy to access.

Skiing and snowboarding

Spain enters a team for every Winter Olympics in several disciplines, including skating, skiing and snowboarding. Famous names include Olympic medal-winners Regino Hernández, Queralt Castellet or Javier Fernández.

Although lessser-known internationally, Spain has numerous ski resorts, and they tend to be a lot cheaper than in many other, more famous European destinations. Try the two in the province of Teruel (Javalambre and Valdelinares) if you're between beginner and intermediate level. For greater challenges, try the Sierra Nevada, between the provinces of Granada and Almería, or the Pyrénées, in the provinces of Huesca and Lleida. Others can be found in the regions of La Rioja, Asturias, and even Madrid.

Equestrian sports

Spain is firmly on the official international showjumping circuit, with events taking place nationwide all year. These include the Mediterranean Equestrian Tour at Oliva Nova (southern Valencia province), free for the public to watch and which typically takes up at least two months of every year.

Equestrian activity in Spain centres heavily on its 'national' breed, the Pura Raza Española; incredibly docile and easy to school to élite levels, these horses' natural talent for advanced dressage is world famous. The Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria, and its counterpart in the southern-Spanish city of Jaén are international tourist attractions.

Most of Spain is rural, meaning plenty of 'riding country' and equestrian centres, where you can learn from the beginning, improve your skills, or just explore the scenery on horseback.

If sports facilities, or being near a national or international sporting venue, is important to you when deciding where to live in Spain, you'll love our Find Your Place section, which lets you filter by lifestyle choice.