The rest of the planet may be gripped by World Cup madness, but in the United States, soccer is also a very popular fan phenomenon.
Only 4% of adults in this country consider football their favorite sport, compared with 34% who say that about football, 14% about basketball and 13% about baseball, according to a Pew Research Center telephone survey conducted Feb. 8- March 7, 2006 among a randomly selected nationally representative sample of 2,250 adults.
At 4%, football is roughly in the same category as auto racing and just ahead of ice hockey and ice skating.
Soccer’s popularity in this country is rooted among Hispanics — 24 percent of them say it’s their favorite sport, compared to just 1 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 2 percent of blacks. Among Hispanics, football and soccer are about equally popular, with baseball coming in third.
Looking at fan interest across all sports, the Pew survey finds that just under half (46%) of adults nationwide say they follow sports, with men (57%) are more likely to do so than women (35%). These numbers have been stable for over a decade, as has the primacy that football enjoys over all other sports as a fan favorite.
Although football is just as popular among blacks as it is among whites, there is a strong racial difference in fan support for basketball and baseball. Among blacks, 31% cite basketball as their favorite sport and only 4% cite baseball. Among whites, 12% cite basketball and 14% baseball.
Fantasy sports leagues
The survey also reveals that 5% of all adults play fantasy sports – a game in which participants choose real professional athletes to be part of their virtual teams, then compete against other virtual teams based on statistics derived from the actual performances of the players they have chosen. have chosen.
Men are nine times more likely than women to play in a fantasy league. Younger men are much more likely to do this than older men.
Among the 91 people surveyed in the Pew survey who said they played fantasy sports, just under half say they pay money to play and about three-quarters say their league is run over the Internet..
Just like in the real world, football is the most popular game in fantasy worldwith two-thirds of fantasy players reporting playing it, compared to 16% who play Fantasy Baseball and 13% who play Fantasy Basketball.
The investigation also reveals that fantasy has its limits. Two-thirds of fantasy players say they get more benefit from a victory for their favorite professional team than their fantasy team.
Maybe some of them will follow the action in Germany this month.
About the report
The results of this survey are based on telephone interviews conducted with a nationally representative sample of adults, ages 18 and older, living in telephone households in the continental United States.
- Interviews conducted from February 8 to March 7, 2006
- 2,250 interviews
- The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for results based on the total sample at the 95% confidence level. The margin of sampling error is higher for results based on subgroups of respondents.
Survey interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish.
In addition to sampling error, keep in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce errors or biases into opinion poll results.
Read it full report for more details.
