New Orleans is home to professional and college sports teams and also offers an array of participatory sports and outdoor activities. Here's a sampling:

The NFL's New Orleans Saints play in the Louisiana Superdome on Poydras Street, a 15-minute walk from the historic French Quarter.

One of the great college football traditions takes place in New Orleans during the Annual Nokia Sugar Bowl, just after Christmas New Orleans Style. 

The Southeast Conference champs serve as host for the game each year, and crowds generally top 75,000. The opponent on any give year can come from the Big Twelve, ACC, Big East, Big Ten or Pac-10 schools.

While the game is the high-point of the New Year’s Eve festivities, Sugar Bowl events also include a prep football classic, a swimming invitational, a sailing regatta, a basketball classic, a pep rally and more.

The NBA has taken flight in New Orleans with the Hornets. All Hornets games are played in the state-of-the-art Sports Arena, a 15-minute walk from the French Quarter.

The New Orleans Zephyrs Triple-A baseball team plays at the field on Airline Drive. Throughout each season, look for fun promotional nights -- from amusing giveaways to $1 beers. Each Saturday game in the summer hosts a live concert.

Regularly scheduled games are held during the traditional summer baseball season through the beginning of September.

Every year thousands of athletes lace up their running shoes and head to New Orleans for the annual Crescent City Classic 10k. The race is as unique as the city itself routing participants from historic Jackson Square to the modern financial district, past the elegant old homes of Esplanade Avenue, and on to the ancient moss-draped oaks of City Park for a post- race celebration.

The Classic, organized by The Crescent City Fitness Foundation, draws participants from around the world, including Olympic athletes. The race began in 1979 with barely 900 entrants and has grown to more than 30,000 racers in its most successful year.

For more than a century, New Orleans has been the winter home of the Sport of Kings. Many of the nation's best thoroughbred stars have come to the Fair Grounds Race Course, most recently Funny Cide.

Fair Grounds, now part of the Churchill Downs Incorporated stable of racetracks, opens its season on Thanksgiving Day and closes in late March. Live racing is held each Thursday through Sunday, with Mondays added to the schedule from January through early March.

Whether you want to play 18 holes on a Robert Trent Jones-designed course or just are hoping to hit a bucket of balls, New Orleans can appease the needs of any golfer with an array of public and semi-private courses.

Louisiana, known as "the Sportsman's Paradise," is a fishing destination for avid outdoorsmen. Its coastlines and marshlands attract fishing enthusiasts from all over the world.