220+ Creative Sports Instagram Captions & Quotes

Updated: January 19th, 2023

Jaw-dropping pictures aren't the only way to generate social media engagement.

Instagram captions, while frequently overlooked, are a powerful tool that may make or break your post.

Some businesses continue to put much too much emphasis on Instagram photos rather than captions.

Great Instagram captions have the power to offer even more insight to the post, potentially boosting engagement, bio visits, and click-throughs.

In this article, we've provided you with 220+ Instagram caption ideas for sports. Additionally, we walk you through the 5 easy-to-follow tips on how to create a great Instagram caption.

Here they are:

Cute Sports Instagram Captions

  • Make each day your masterpiece.
  • Life is happier, with a bike on a dirt mountain.
  • The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.
  • You can sum up this sport in two words: You never know.
  • Ninety percent of this game is half mental.
  • I couldn’t find the sports car of my dreams, so I built it myself.
  • The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.
  • Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
  • The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.
  • The true champion believes in the impossible.
  • Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
  • The game isn’t over until it’s over.
  • Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.
  • What do you do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.
  • There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.
  • Wrestling is ballet with violence.
  • You can motivate players better with kind words than you can with a whip.
  • Baseball is what we were. Football is what we have become.
  • If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.
  • Witness the Power.
  • Every day is a great day for hockey.
  • Keep calm because it’s game day!
  • If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.
  • If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win.
  • We don’t wear cups, we win them.
  • Losing feels worse than winning feels good.
  • Never say never because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.
  • It’s not a contact sport, it’s a collision sport.
  • What to do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.
  • Champions keep playing until they get it right.
  • You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, but you gotta suit up for them all.
  • You don’t know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket.
  • The first half was even, the second half was even worse.
  • Winners never quit and quitters never win. Sports do not build character. They reveal it.
  • Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
  • Winning solves everything.
  • I don’t want to shoot my mouth in my foot, but those are games we can win.
  • I was going to write myself in, but I was afraid I’d get shot.
  • If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.
  • Fast and Furious.
  • When I go out there, I have no pity for my brother. I am out there to win.
  • I’ve got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.
  • I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.
  • If you don’t invest very much, then defeat doesn’t hurt very much and winning is not very exciting.
  • Victory requires payment in advance.
  • I quit school in the sixth grade because of pneumonia. Not because I had it, but because I couldn’t spell it.
  • I never left the field saying I could have done more to get ready and that gives me peace of mind.
  • Some people dream of success others stay awake to achieve it.
  • I can dribble with my right hand and I can dribble with my left hand. I’m amphibious.
  • The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.

Short Sports Instagram Captions

  • One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.
  • If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.
  • It’s a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square.
  • You might not be able to outthink, out the market, or outspend your competition, but you can outwork them.
  • Serious sport is war minus the shooting.
  • Don’t wear your team‘s colors – bleed them.
  • A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.
  • Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.
  • The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.
  • Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.
  • You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.
  • Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.
  • Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.
  • Because there are no fours on why he takes so many threes.
  • Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible, and suddenly you’re doing the impossible.
  • Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
  • Winners in life don’t always win; they just don’t give up.
  • Imagination has a great deal to do with winning.
  • Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy are the noise before defeat.
  • Beach sport is always the best sport.
  • He called me a rapist and a recluse. I’m not a recluse.
  • Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.
  • Winning isn’t getting ahead of others. It’s getting ahead of yourself.
  • Failure is nothing more than a chance to revise your strategy.
  • The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.
  • Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.
  • I want to be remembered as the guy who gave his all whenever he was on the field.
  • Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.
  • It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.
  • Any American boy can be a basketball star if he grows up, up, up.
  • I figure practice puts your brains in your muscles.
  • Let your joy scream across the pain.
  • The key is not the will to win… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.
  • In reality, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement it like hell.
  • The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.
  • But the real tragedy was that 15 hadn’t been colored yet.
  • In the end, the game comes down to one thing: man against man. May the best man win.
  • Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.
  • The reason women don’t play football is that 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public.
  • You can do it.
  • When you’re rich, you don’t write checks straight cash, homey.
  • If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.
  • You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.
  • You cannot be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you cannot go south at the same time.
  • The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.
  • A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
  • When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less.
  • Be a game changer – the world has enough followers.
  • It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.
  • I’ve failed over & over & over again in my life & that is why I succeed.
  • I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.
  • Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.
  • To me, boxing is like ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.
  • We are one.
  • He who doesn’t want to face his challenges shall always face challenges!
  • The only way to stop Jim Brown was to give him a movie contract.
  • There’s no elevator to success; take the stairs.

Cool Sports Instagram Captions

  • All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
  • The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.
  • You have to do something in your life that is honorable and not cowardly if you are to live in peace with yourself.
  • Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.
  • I don’t have tricky plays, I’d rather have tricky players.
  • We don’t have an attitude we’re just THAT good.
  • A vision without a strategy remains an illusion.
  • One who conquers the sea today is ready to conquer the ocean tomorrow.
  • I’d be willing to bet you, if I was a betting man, that I have never bet on baseball.
  • Statistics are like bikinis—they show a lot but not everything.
  • A winner is that person who gets up one more time than he was knocked down.
  • I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.
  • Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
  • If I wasn’t as sexy for my cat, I probably wouldn’t have come back.
  • It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.
  • Winning takes precedence overall. There’s no gray area. No almosts.
  • the breakfast of champions is not cereal, it’s the opposition.
  • A day without newspapers is like walking around without your pants on.
  • Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand.
  • A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.
  • It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.
  • I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks in batting practice.
  • The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
  • If Cheerleading was easy they’d call it Football.
  • Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.
  • Your biggest opponent isn’t the other guy. It’s human nature.
  • You just have to be yourself and go full with confidence and be courageous.
  • Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.
  • You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.
  • A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.
  • Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.
  • Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.
  • Strategy without process is little more than a wish list.
  • Passion first and everything will fall into place.
  • When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.
  • You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
  • Without a strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless.
  • Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.
  • It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.
  • Winning isn’t everything, but wanting it is.
  • With confidence, you have won before you have started.
  • One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.
  • One day of practice is like one day of clean living. It doesn’t do you any good.
  • Rite injuries in dust, benefits in marble.
  • At one point in your life, you either have the thing you want or the reasons why you don’t.
  • Winners never quit and quitters never win.
  • If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.
  • I’ve never lost a game, I just ran out of time.
  • Life keeps throwing me stones. And I keep finding the diamonds.
  • Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body.
  • Together Stronger.
  • I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.
  • Do not let what you can not do interfere with what you can do.

Funny Sports Instagram Captions

  • Have confidence that if you have done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well too.
  • Most football players are temperamental. That’s 90 percent temper and 10 percent mental.
  • I’m never tired of winning, and I’m never tired of skiing.
  • Make the Rules!
  • There are really only two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and put the darn ball in the basket.
  • You learn more from losing than winning. You learn how to keep going.
  • Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.
  • What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.
  • Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.
  • Always focus on the front windshield and not the review mirror.
  • Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like pimps.
  • You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.
  • The rules of soccer are like nuclear warfare. there are no winners, only survivors.
  • Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control.
  • Make the most of yourself, for that, is all there is of you.
  • It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.
  • I think football would become an even better game if someone could invent a ball that kicks back.
  • The biggest thrill wasn’t in winning on Sunday but in meeting the payroll on Monday.
  • Winning means you’re willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.
  • I did not wake up today to be mediocre.
  • Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.
  • The man who has no imagination has no wings.
  • This is really a lovely horse, I once rode her mother.
  • I hated every minute of training, but I said, Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.
  • Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.
  • All things are difficult before they are easy.
  • Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.
  • Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.
  • I made a 1,600 minus 800 minus 200 on the SAT, so I’m very intelligent when I speak.
  • However beautiful the strategy is, you should occasionally look at the results.
  • Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
  • To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them.
  • The broken heart. You think you will die, but you keep living, day after day after a terrible day.
  • Today, you have 100% of your life left.
  • Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything that comes in second.
  • Make good habits and they will make you.
  • A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.
  • I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.
  • There’s only one growth strategy: work hard.
  • I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play.
  • A champion needs motivation above and beyond winning.
  • The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.
  • If practice makes perfect, and no one is perfect, why practice?
  • Sports are the reason I am out of shape. I watch them all on TV.
  • If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.
  • Most talented players don’t always succeed. Some don’t even make the team. It’s more what’s inside.
  • If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?
  • If there’s no wind, row.
  • Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always looks.
  • Always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.
  • We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.
  • No one is a failure until they stop trying.
  • Strategy is a fancy word for coming up with a long-term plan and putting it into action.
  • They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.
  • When you’re riding, only the race in which you’re riding is important.
  • Show me a gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.
  • Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.
  • Luck? Sure. But only after long practice and only with the ability to think under pressure.
  • Leadership, like coaching, is fighting for the hearts and souls of men and getting them to believe in you.
  • It’s not the will to win that matters everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.
  • Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries! what worthy man does not keep those in mind?
  • Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.
  • Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenge; crimes are avenged.
  • If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough.
  • If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like your grandmother with her teeth out.
  • Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

Learn more about starting a sports wear store:

Where to start?

-> How much does it cost to start a sports wear store?
-> Pros and cons of a sports wear store

Need inspiration?

-> Other sports wear store success stories
-> Examples of established sports wear store
-> Sports wear store Instagram bios

Other resources

5 Tips For Creating A Great Instagram Caption

1. Write several drafts first

Make at least three different Instagram caption drafts.

This will allow you to edit, proofread, and compare your captions side by side to see which one has the most effect.

Your first draft will almost never be selected as the best option, which is why you should set aside enough time to write several.

2. Front-load the most important information

The 2,200-characters limit for Instagram captions is mostly a formality. However, it's worth noting that ig captions are cut off in users’ feeds to around 140 characters.

This doesn't mean you must make your insta captions extremely short so people can see everything without clicking "more."

Instead, frontload your captions with the most important sentence or calls-to-action, and save any @mentions, hashtags, or other unimportant information for the end.

article

3. Include a strong call to action

The most effective way to maximize the possibility for your Instagram post to get shared and improve engagement is to include a call to action in the captions.

Instead of passively scrolling through, you should use action verbs to encourage people to take action.

Here are some exåmples:

  • Visit the link in bio to learn more
  • Share your experience in the comments
  • Enter by liking this photo and signing up for our monthly newsletter

article

4. Limit yourself to 3-4 hashtags

A hashtag on Instagram works the same way it does on Twitter and Facebook: it unites the conversations of many users into a single stream.

Anyone who searches for that hashtag on Instagram may see your Insta post if your account is public.

However, you should use hashtags sparingly. As a means to get more followers, some Instagram users add a string of searchable hashtags.

Too many hashtags can come off spammy to your existing followers. Limit yourself to three or four hashtags at most.

article

5. Use emojis and have fun with them.

Add some emojis to spice up your insta captions and make them more appealing.

Emojis added at the end of sentences or paragraphs may act as "bookends," visually breaking up long strings of text.

You can also use emojis to encourage readers to take action, such as clicking the link in the bio.

If you're going to use emojis, make sure they match your tone of voice and identity. You don't want to use too many emojis at once, particularly in the same caption.

article

Final Thoughts

Good Instagram captions take your content to new heights.

Remember not to rush your copywriting and to evaluate the success of your efforts so that you can use objective benchmarks to figure out what works.

Your content will go far if you combine a beautiful photo with a great Instagram caption.

-> Instagram bios for a sports wear store

meet the author
Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.