This study aimed to investigate the formation of the social perception of domestic maritime sports using text mining analysis of keywords and topics from domestic media coverage over the past 10 years related to representative maritime sports, including yachting, rowing, and canoeing. The results are as follows: First, term frequency (TF) and word cloud analyses identified the top keywords: "maritime," "competition," "experience," "tourism," "world," "yachting," "canoeing," "leisure," and "participation." Second, semantic network analysis revealed that yachting was correlated with terms like "maritime," "industry," "competition," "leisure," "tourism," "boat," "facilities," and "business"; rowing with terms like "competition" and "Chungju"; and canoeing with terms like "maritime," "competition," "experience," "leisure," and "tourism." Third, topic modeling analysis indicated that yachting, rowing, and canoeing are perceived as elite sports and maritime leisure sports. However, the perception of these sports has been demonstrated to have little impact on society, public opinion, and social transformation. In summary, when considering these results comprehensively, it can be concluded that yachting and canoeing have gradually shifted from being perceived as elite sports to essential elements of the maritime leisure industry. Contrariwise, rowing remains primarily associated with elite sports, and its popularization as a maritime leisure sport appears limited at this time.