The Harris Poll^® #58, October 30, 2002

Professional Football Widens Its Lead Over Baseball as Nation's Favorite Sport

Auto racing, basketball, golf, hockey and soccer are all more popular than they used to be
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by David K. Krane

When asked to pick their favorite sport, the largest number of adults who follow sports selected professional football (27%), followed by baseball (14%), men’s professional basketball (11%) and auto racing (10%). Pro football's lead over baseball has widened from seven points in 1994 to thirteen points this year. In 1985, football and baseball were virtually equal (at 24% and 23%, respectively).

Since 1985, The Harris Poll^® has tracked the percentage of people who follow various sports and has asked them to identify their favorite sport. Over the last seventeen years, several sports have attracted an increased number of fans:

• Professional football, up from 59% to 60%
• Men’s professional basketball, from 32% to 40%
• Auto racing, from 21% to 31%
• Golf, from 20% to 29%
• Hockey, from 14% to 18%
• Soccer, from 10% to 18%
• Men’s college basketball, from 32% to 33%.

Sports that have fewer fans today than in 1985 include:

• Baseball (which has not totally recovered from the 1994 strike and has played most of the 2002 season under the threat of another strike), down from 54% to 46%
• College football, from 47% to 45%
• Track and field, from 21% to 18%
• Horse racing, down from 21% to only 12%
• Bowling, down from 18% to 13%.

These are the results of The Harris Poll, a nationwide telephone survey conducted by Harris Interactive^® among a sample of 1,011 adults from September 19 through 23, 2002.

"If you had to choose, which one of these sports would you say is your favorite?"

Base: All who follow a sport

SPORTS FOLLOWED

"Please tell me which of these sports you follow."

Base: All adults

The Harris Poll^® was conducted by telephone within the United States between September 19 through 23, 2002 among a nationwide cross section of 1,011 adults (18+). Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

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Q605, Q610