Boxing

• Boxing was such a huge sport at the time that it carried another industry, broadcasting, to prominence. Sales of radios in the decade soared in part because people wanted to hear the call of the "big fight." The holder of the heavyweight champion's belt was arguably the most famous athlete in the world in the '30s. Six boxers, including Max Schmeling, Max Baer and "Cinderella Man" James Braddock held that title in the '30s until African-American Joe Louis claimed it in 1937. Louis held it until 1949. Championship fights were so big then that 70,000 people packed Yankee Stadium for the 1938 rematch between Louis and Schmeling.
  
  

Baseball

• Major League Baseball had 18 teams in the 1930s and sold more than 83 million tickets. The New York Yankees were the best team of the '30s, winning five World Series titles. Some of the Yankees' notable players were Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth. Other famous baseball players in the 1930s were Mel Ott of the New York Giants and Jimmie Foxx of the Philadelphia Athletics. The Negro Leagues were also around in the 1930s, with the Homestead Grays emerging as the power team in the Negro American League formed in 1937.
  
  

American Football

• The National Football League, or NFL, hosted its first college football draft in 1936. Prior to this draft, college football players chose their own team. One of the professional football's most influential quarterbacks, Sammy Baugh, started his NFL career in 1937. Baugh was one of the first NFL quarterbacks to regularly use the forward pass in an offense scheme.
  
  

Basketball

• Basketball was still a relatively new sport at the beginning of the '30s, at least on the pro level. The first big pro league, the American Basketball League, went defunct in 1931. The National Basketball League arrived in the middle of the decade, and it would eventually merge with the Basketball Association of America to become the National Basketball Association.
  
  

Olympics

• The 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, had low participation numbers because many international athletes were unable to pay for the trip. However, the 1932 games were the first to have an Olympic Village. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany, were memorable because of Jesse Owens, an African-American Olympiad who won four gold medals. Owens victory debunked German Chancellor Adolf Hitler's theory of the Aryan race's athletic superiority.
  
  

Horse Racing

• The '30s saw 15 U.S. states legalize horse racing, which raised the total number of horse racing states to 21. Three horses, Gallant Fox, Omaha and War Admiral, won the Triple Crown in the decade. War Admiral gained even more notoriety when he lost a match race to Seabiscuit in 1938 at Pimlico. The less-well bred Seabiscuit became a national symbol of strength for the recovering nation. Seabiscuit's story was told in a book by Laura Hillenbrand, which was made into the film "Seabiscuit." It earned seven Academy Award nominations in 2003.