More Americans Are Fans of Pro Football Than Any Other Sport (2024)

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Sports fans have a lot to hold their attentionthis weekend with significant events in most of the major sports.Playoffs begin in the National Basketball Association and continuein the National Hockey League; the National Football League holdsits annual draft of college players; and major league baseball,golf, tennis, and auto racing continue their seasons. This is,thus, a good time to consider the relative popularity of the majorspectator sports in America. A Gallup poll conducted March 26-28finds that professional football has more fans than any other sportin America, topping the list of 11 sports tested:

The data from this survey afford an opportunity to assess notonly which sports are the most popular in the public, but also whatdistinguishes fans of one sport from another. Certainly, somegeneral characteristics apply, with the most obvious being that menare more likely than women to be fans of just about every sport.But a number of differences are also apparent for various sports byage, region, education, income and race. The analysis is builtaround the following tables, which displays the proportion of eachgroup that is a fan of the sport. The numbers have been indexed toa base of 100. The base is equal to the overall proportion ofAmericans who say they are fans of each sport. Scores above 100indicate that members of that group are more likely to be fans ofthe sport than the population in general, and scores below 100indicate that members of that group are less likely to be fans ofthe sport than the population in general. The numbers, thus, showthe relative strength of each sport across the subgroups. It shouldbe noted that the numbers cannot be compared across sports.

Col. Deg.: College degree
Some Col.: Some college
No Col.: No college

E: East
MW: Midwest
S: South
W: West

Professional and College Football
More than six in 10Americans (63%) consider themselves to be fans of professionalfootball, higher than any of the 11 sports tested. Football alsotraditionally places first by a wide margin when Americans areasked to name their favorite sport, and thus has a broad appeal inAmerica. Pro football is one of only three of the 11 sports testedwhere a majority of women consider themselves fans. However, profootball still exhibits one of the larger gender gaps of thesports: 74% of men and 53% of women consider themselves fans, for agender gap of 21 percentage points. Only college football andfigure skating show larger gender gaps. Pro football also drawsproportionately more of its fans from younger Americans. Aboutseven in 10 Americans below the age of 50 are football fans, butonly 60% of those between the ages of 50 and 64 and just 47% ofthose over the age of 65 consider themselves pro football fans. Profootball fans are fairly evenly spread throughout the four regionsof the country, but they are more likely to come from suburban(68%) or urban (64%) areas than rural areas (52%).

Given that football in a general sense is Americans' favoritesport, it is not surprising that the pro and college versions ofthe game have the highest and third-highest percentage of fans,respectively. Like pro football, college football shows a decidedgender gap of 23 points. Sixty-five percent of men and 42% of womenare fans of college football, which is an even larger gap than thatwhich exists for pro football. There are considerable differencesby region, too, as those in the Eastern United States are much lesslikely to be fans of college football (43%) than in the otherregions, all of which have at least 54% identifying as collegefootball fans. This may be a result of the fact that the East lacksa prominent college football conference or program, which aremainly found in the South, Midwest and West. Lastly, there is atendency for married people to identify as college football fans,as 58% of married Americans and 47% of non-married people are fansof the sport.

College football fans are not only likely to be fans of profootball, but perhaps more interestingly, college basketball aswell. The relationship between being a college football fan andalso a college basketball fan is as strong as that of being a fanof both the college and pro versions of football or basketball,suggesting that collegiate sports have a unique appeal all theirown.

Professional Baseball
The poll shows that 55% ofAmericans considered themselves to be fans of professionalbaseball, placing it second among the sports tested. Baseball hasan older fan base than do most sports. This is not due, however, tothe fact that older and younger Americans differ in their affinityfor baseball. Indeed, the differences are small, as 54% ofAmericans under the age of 50 and 57% of Americans over 50 arebaseball fans. Rather, the difference is primarily due to the factthat most sports have many more fans of younger ages than they dofans of older ages. White Americans are also more likely to bebaseball fans than are non-whites, a tendency that exists in a fewsports but not in most. Baseball has more fans in the East andMidwest than it does in the South, and also has more fans insuburban areas than in rural areas.

Figure Skating
Half the public says they are fans of figure skating, and it is theonly sport of the 11 tested that has more female than male fans.Sixty-eight percent of women consider themselves fans of figureskating, while only 32% of men do, resulting in a gap of 36percentage points, the largest of all sports. Figure skating alsohas an older fan base; in fact it has the greatest proportion offans among Americans 50 years and older, even eclipsing profootball in this regard. Sixty-two percent of Americans over theage of 50 are fans of figure skating, compared to only 43% ofAmericans below the age of 50. There are slight regionaldifferences among figure skating fans, with these residing in theWest more likely and those in the South least likely to befans.

Professional and College Basketball
When Americans are asked to name their favorite sport, basketballgenerally places second to football. However, college andprofessional basketball trail four other sports in the percentageof Americans who consider themselves fans of the sport.Professional basketball has a strong appeal among non-whites,especially blacks. In the poll, 77% of blacks indicated they werefans of pro basketball compared to 40% of whites. Pro basketballalso shows considerable differences by age, with younger Americansfar more likely to be fans of the sport than are older Americans.Nearly six in 10 of those between the ages of 18 and 29 identify asfans of college basketball, and each succeeding age group shows asmaller proportion of fans -- 44% of 30-49 year olds, 42% of 50-64year olds, and just 33% of those 65 and older. Professionalwrestling is the only other sport to exhibit such a marked"generation" gap. Pro basketball also shows considerabledifferences according to place of residence. More than half ofAmericans (53%) residing in urban areas are fans of pro basketball,compared to 43% of those in suburban areas and just 37% of those inrural areas.

College basketball also has a high proportion of non-white fans,but the differences are not nearly as pronounced as they are forpro basketball. More whites (46%) and fewer blacks (54%) are fansof college basketball when compared to pro basketball. Collegebasketball also does not show nearly the age differences that probasketball does, as the difference in fan support among theyoungest Americans (50% of 18-29 years old) and the oldestAmericans (43% of those 65 and over) is only seven percentagepoints. College basketball does exhibit regional differences, as52% of those in the Midwest compared to 44% of those in the Eastand 44% of those in the West consider themselves fans of the sport.Educational differences also exist, with those holding a collegedegree more likely than those who do not to be fans of collegebasketball. Similar to college football, a slightly greaterproportion of married people (51%) as compared to non-marriedpeople (43%) are fans of college basketball. As pointed outearlier, fans of pro basketball and college football are especiallylikely to be fans of college basketball.

Auto Racing
About four in 10 Americans say they are fans of auto racing. Autoracing fans are especially likely to be male (48% of males are autoracing fans compared to 30% of females) and also white (41% ofwhites compared to 29% of non-whites). Fans of the sport also tendto be younger, as 46% of Americans below the age of 30 are fanscompared to just 26% of Americans age 65 and over. Auto racing isthe only sport for which more Americans living in rural areas (42%)are fans than are Americans living in suburban (40%) or urban areas(35%). About half of Americans living in the Midwest say they areracing fans, while in each of the other regions less than four in10 say they are fans. Racing fans are less likely to hold collegedegrees -- nearly half of those with a high school diploma or lessare fans of auto racing, but only 32% of those with any collegeeducation are.

Professional Golf
Thirty-six percent of Americans say they are fans of professionalgolf. Golf fans tend to be older (48% of Americans 65 and older aregolf fans, compared to just 29% of 18-29 year olds) and to comefrom higher income households. There is a rather large gender gapamong golf fans, as 44% of men are fans of the sport compared tojust 28% of women. Golf fans exhibit very little differencesaccording to race, region, and place of residence.

Professional Ice Hockey
Of the major team sports, professional ice hockey has the smallestfan base in the United States, with 31% of Americans saying theyare fans of the sport. Hockey fans tend to be very young -- 40% of18-29 year olds say they are hockey fans compared to just 19% ofthose 65 and older. In fact, of the 11 sports tested, onlyprofessional wrestling has a lower proportion of fans among theoldest Americans. Whites are nearly twice as likely to be fans ofhockey as are blacks. Hockey exhibits fairly strong regionaldifferences as well, with much greater fan support in the East(38%) and West (36%) than in the South (20%). Only about one infive Americans (22%) living in rural areas are fans of ice hockey,while 36% of those living in suburban areas are.

Professional Tennis
Twenty-eight percent of Americans are fans of professional tennis.Men and women are about equally likely to be fans of tennis, makingtennis the sport with the greatest appeal to women outside offigure skating. Tennis also shows very small differences by age.Tennis fans are likely to come from higher socioeconomicbackgrounds, as those with more education and higher incomes aremuch more likely to be fans of the sport than are those with lesseducation and lower incomes. Those residing in the west are mostlikely to be tennis fans (37%), much higher than those in theMidwest (20%), South (27%) and East (30%). Those living in ruralareas are not very likely to be fans of tennis -- only 19% arecompared to 34% of Americans living in urban areas and 30% of thoseliving in suburban areas.

Professional Wrestling
Of the 11 sports tested, professional wrestling has the fewestfans, with only 15% of Americans claiming to be fans. Wrestlingfans are heavily skewed toward the youngest Americans -- 30% of18-29 year olds are fans of the sport, with the numbers fallingsharply to just 14% among 30-49 year olds, 10% of 50-64 year olds,and only 7% of those 65 years and older. Wrestling fans tend tohave less formal education, as 22% of Americans with a high schooldiploma or less are fans, compared to just 6% of Americans with acollege degree. Similar patterns are also evident by income. Menare slightly more likely to be fans of professional wrestling thanare women.

Survey Methods

These results are based on telephone interviews with a randomlyselected national sample of 1,024 adults, 18 years and older,conducted March 26-28, 2001. For results based on this sample, onecan say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum errorattributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, questionwording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys canintroduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.The analyses here are based on logistic regression, and predict thelikelihood of being a fan of each sport based on the demographiccharacteristics, while taking into account and controlling theeffect each characteristic has on being a fan.