Sport has always been important in Birmingham, England, from the hundreds of diverse grass-roots sports clubs to internationally famous teams, associations and venues.

The city was the first city to have been awarded the title National City of Sport by the Sports Council.

Major teams

+Major sports teams in BirminghamClubSportFoundedLeagueVenueAston VillaFootball1874 Premier LeagueVilla ParkBirmingham CityFootball1875EFL ChampionshipSt. Andrew's StadiumBirmingham Moseley RugbyRugby union1873National League 1Billesley CommonWarwickshire County Cricket ClubCricket1882County ChampionshipEdgbaston Cricket Ground

Athletics

The Birmingham Athletic Club opened a Gymnasium in King Alfred's Place, in Aug 1865/6, and held their annual display and assault-at-arms in the Town Hall. The first festival of the Birmingham Athletic Club was held in 1868. On 1 March 1880 an association was organised of many of the bicycle clubs, cricket clubs, football clubs, and similar athletic bodies in the town and neighbourhood, under the name of "The Midland Counties Amateurs' Athletic Union." The sport was so popular that in January 1879 the "Midland Athlete" newspaper was first published.Catalogue of Printed Books in the Library of the British Museum, A. W. K. Miller (British Museum Dept. of Printed Books) and Richard Garnett (British Museum), 1905, W. Clowes and Sons In 1889 the BAC formed the Birmingham Athletic Institute to promote public physical education along the lines of the Birmingham and Midland Institute for education.

In 1940 a German bomb destroyed the clubroom, gymnasium, equipment and 74 years of records. This initiated the slow decline of the BAC which eventually disbanded in November 1956. All that survived were their five most prized trophies, protected by a tin box in the basement.

Today track and field athletics takes place at the open-air Alexander Stadium on a national and international level. Recent development has seen addition of a High Performance Centre for indoor intense specialist training. The Stadium is also home to Birchfield Harriers, who have contributed towards Britain's National and International Athletics for many years and has produced international athletes such as Denise Lewis, Mark Lewis-Francis and Kelly Sotherton. The National Indoor Arena is Britain's Premier Indoor Athletics stadium and in 2003 hosted the 9th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics. The city hosted the European Athletic Association's 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships.

Cricket

Records from the 19th century suggest that there was a cricket club in existence in Birmingham by 1745, and that a cricket match was being played in Birmingham on the day that the Battle of Culloden was fought in 1746. The earliest cricket match in Birmingham for which a definite record exists took place on Monday 15 July 1751, between "Eleven of the Gentlemen of the Holte Bridgman's Club and Eleven of the Gentlemen of Mr Thomas Bellamy's Club, the most of three innings, for Twenty-Two Guineas", at the cricket ground at Holte Bridgman's Apollo Gardens in Deritend, Aston. Admission was 2 pence. In 1760 a "Society of Cricket Players of Birmingham" advertised in Aris's Birmingham Gazette to challenge any other team within 30 miles of the town to a game for the prize of 20 guineas.

The Birmingham and District Cricket League is the oldest cricket league in the world, having been founded in 1888.

Cricket was extremely popular in Birmingham between World War I and World War II. Records from the Sports Argus show that there were 200 teams playing cricket weekly within Birmingham in 1922, a figure which rose to 300 in 1930 and exceeded 320 in 1939. These figures do not include teams playing in competitions within individual firms – in the early 1930s the Birmingham Small Arms Company alone supported a cricket league of 14 teams.

Today County Cricket is played at the Edgbaston Cricket Ground, home to Warwickshire County Cricket Club. International test matches are also held there.

In 1882, Bournville Cricket Club was founded in Froggarts Farm on the corner of Bournville Lane and Linden Road, which is now The Old Farm Hotel. The Ground held its first county game when Worcestershire played Essex in June 1910, and in 1982 held an ICC champions trophy 3rd Place Play off when Papua New Guinea played Bangladesh.Bournville Cricket Club History

Birmingham was the host for the first ever Cricket World Cup of either gender, a Women's Cricket World Cup in 1973. England beat Australia in the finals.

Football

The city is home to two of the oldest professional football teams in the world: Aston Villa (1874) and Birmingham City (1875).BCFC: History Nearby West Bromwich Albion's ground The Hawthorns used to be divided by the Birmingham/Smethwick border, but was moved completely into the latter by a minor rationalisation of local government borders in the 1960s and is now in Sandwell. In addition, Birmingham features several non-league teams including Romulus and Sutton Coldfield Town and professional team Coventry City played at St Andrew's for two seasons between 2019 and 2021.

Aston in Birmingham is notable for being the location for the first football league, which was invented by William McGregor on 22 March 1885. Aston Villa Football Club were among the founding clubs of the Premier League in 1992. Villa is also one of only three football clubs to be a founding member of both the Premier League in 1992 and the English Football League in 1888.

Birmingham City Ladies compete at the top level of English women's football, the FA WSL.

Rugby Union Rugby Union is played in Birmingham by Moseley Rugby Football Club promoted as Champions to the second tier in April 2006, since re-branded as the RFU Championship. The club was founded in 1873 and reached four cup finals, sharing the trophy with Gloucester on one occasion before an outright win at Twickenham in 2009. Playing for most of their history at The Reddings, in 2000 Moseley relocated to a temporary ground at the University of Birmingham and now have a new permanent home at Billesley Common.

The Solihull-based Birmingham & Solihull Pertemps Bees was established in 1989.

Other team sports Speedway The first ever speedway meeting in Birmingham was held on 12 July 1928 at The Alexander Sports Stadium (now the Perry Barr Greyhound Stadium). The last speedway meeting of that season was held on 1 September 1928. The first meeting after World War II was held on 4 May 1946 against Norwich. It was used up until 1957 and again in 1960. The Birchfield Harriers then refused for the stadium to be used for speedway again.

The team then moved to the former Perry Barr Greyhound Stadium which was renamed the Ladbroke Stadium. It staged speedway from 1929 to 1931, and then from 1971 to 1983. It was demolished the following year. The team broke up in 1986 after their final meeting at Bordesley Green.

In March 2007, Speedway racing returned to Birmingham after 20 years. A new team was created to compete at the Perry Barr Greyhound Stadium under the name the "Birmingham Brummies".

The Brummies have won several honours since reforming in 2007. These include winning the Midland Shield in 2007, the Premier League pairs in 2009, the Premier League fours in 2010, the National League fours in 2015, the National Trophy in 2016. They also won back to back National League titles in 2015 and 2016.

Following the closure of Perry Barr Stadium in August 2025, the team dissolved.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y802rxgz9o

American football The city is home to two amateur American football teams. One, the Birmingham Bulls, founded in 1983, is amongst the oldest teams playing the sport in the United Kingdom, and play in the BAFANL Division One SFC North. The team play their home games at Erin Go Bragh in Erdington.

The other is the Birmingham Lions, the American football team representing the University of Birmingham in the BUAFL. Founded in 1989, they are one of the most successful teams in their league; winning multiple national championships in recent year.

Baseball Birmingham is home to Birmingham Baseball Club, which fields two teams, the Metalheads and the Bats, in the West Midlands Baseball League, playing their home games at Marston Green Recreation Ground.

Based in Marston Green, the club claim a number of BBF division championships. In 2024, the Metalheads won the BBF AA Summer Cup and the West Midlands Baseball League Championship.

Basketball Basketball was first introduced to Birmingham in 1911 when a YMCA instructor brought basketball to Birmingham YMCA, and a team was produced. The American Rules had been introduced, but the teams in Birmingham found them to be too complicated, and when forming a Local Basketball Association, they compiled a more practical set of rules for their own use. The first basketball tournament for the Senior Championship Cup was held in Birmingham on 6 June 1936. On 9 April 1938 the first Junior Championship Final was held in Birmingham.

For England's first international basketball competition, Birmingham provided three players; F. Cole, C. Hunt and A. J. Lee. A Championship Final was held in April 1940 with the Birmingham Athletic Institute (BAI) beating London Central YMCA in the match. Due to World War II, there was no championship for the next six years, resulting in Birmingham retaining the trophy for that period.

More recently, basketball was played by the Birmingham Bullets, who competed in the top United Kingdom basketball league. The Bullets went on a season-long break from competitive action in 2006, however, and subsequently went into liquidation and ceased to exist. The Birmingham Bullets were later replaced by the Birmingham Panthers for the 2007-08 season; however a lack of success led them to fold after a single season. A third basketball team, Birmingham Knights, was founded in 2011 and joined the league in 2013; playing their home games at North Solihull Sports Centre. However, as had happened with the Birmingham Panthers before them, Birmingham Knights folded after a single season; in which they had lost every single game.

Hockey Hockey is a very popular sport with Edgbaston, Harborne and Bournville being the leading clubs in the city.

Edgbaston Hockey Club were founded in 1885, making them the second oldest hockey club in the country. Matches are played at the University of Birmingham and at Edgbaston High School. Bournville Hockey Club were founded in 1902 as a section of the Bournville Athletic Club. Their first game was against Small Heath on 15 November 1902, in which they lost. Bournville has produced international hockey players including David Griffith-Jones, who was selected to play for Wales in 1955 becoming Bournville's first international player. Bournville have moved venues in their history as a result of Cadbury's closure of the sports facilities at the factory. They are currently based at the University of Birmingham and King Edward VI High School for Girls.Bournville Hockey Club

Netball Dozens of junior and senior Netball clubs exist in Birmingham such as the Birmingham City Netball Club (founded in 1995) and Sutton Town Netball Club (founded in 2006) (http://Suttontown.hitssports.com) which coordinates junior and intermediate netball teams (under-18s).

The Birmingham (adult) Netball League plays from September to March (approximately) and has roughly 100 teams which are arranged in 13 divisions. The 1st division includes some of England's top clubs like for instance Linden who are based at Nechells Community Centre and are currently the National Clubs League Division 1 leaders. There are several other Netball leagues in the UK of which Birmingham teams contribute considerably.

A "Netball Little League" was established in 2003 for the areas of Bournville and Selly Oak.

Rugby League