NFL still most popular sport

[faba]

NFL most popular for 30th year in row

Updated: January 26, 2014, 9:27 AM ET

By Darren Rovell | ESPN.com

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Pro football is the most popular sport in America for at least the 30th straight year.

That's according to a survey taken this month by the Harris Poll, which has been asking adult fans, ages 18 and over, about their favorite sport since 1985.

In 2014, 35 percent of fans call the NFL their favorite sport, followed by Major League Baseball (14 percent), college football (11 percent), auto racing (7 percent), the NBA (6 percent), the NHL (5 percent) and college basketball (3 percent).

In 1985, the first year the poll was taken, the NFL bested MLB by just one percentage point (24 to 23 percent), but since then interest in baseball has fallen while the NFL has experienced a huge rise in popularity.

Nine percent fewer fans call baseball their favorite sport over the 30-year span, the biggest drop of any sport. The polling numbers suggest that the sport hasn't been able to recover from a popularity standpoint from 1994, when a strike forced the cancellation of the World Series.

One other significant drop was in professional golf. Throughout Tiger Woods' pro career, which began in 1996, no less four percent of the U.S. adult population called golf their favorite sport. But since 2010, the first year after Woods' extramarital affair scandal, only two percent of Americans have called it their favorite sport.

A sport's popularity varies greatly based on demographics. More people who live in rural areas on the East coast say they're fans of the NFL than the general U.S. population. Those with an annual household income of more than $100,000 are more likely to be baseball fans, while African Americans are less likely to enjoy the sport, the poll reveals. More southerners call college football their favorite sport, while those with a high school education or less tend to gravitate to auto racing.

 

[T0mShane]

Sixteen games is the major reason, IMO. The season flies by without demanding too much of your attention. It doesn't choke you...yet. If Goodell has his way and we're playing 18 games and Thursdays and Fridays, etc, he's going to hurt the brand.

As far as the other sports, each of their seasons take wayyyyyyy too long, and as a result the players spend large chunks of the season punching the clock. If you've ever gone to a baseball game in August, or an NBA game in February, and you watched how little effort the players are actually giving on the field/court when the camera isn't directly on them, you understand how ridiculous it is to run those seasons too long. Drop the NBA to 50 games and drop MLB to 82 games. Problem solved.

As for the NHL, please. It's for chicks and closet racists.

[joewillie78]

Sixteen games is the major reason, IMO. The season flies by without demanding too much of your attention. It doesn't choke you...yet. If Goodell has his way and we're playing 18 games and Thursdays and Fridays, etc, he's going to hurt the brand.

As far as the other sports, each of their seasons take wayyyyyyy too long, and as a result the players spend large chunks of the season punching the clock. If you've ever gone to a baseball game in August, or an NBA game in February, and you watched how little effort the players are actually giving on the field/court when the camera isn't directly on them, you understand how ridiculous it is to run those seasons too long. Drop the NBA to 50 games and drop MLB to 82 games. Problem solved.

As for the NHL, please. It's for chicks and closet racists.

What about SOCCER? Should be outlawed.

[PFSIKH]

Sixteen games is the major reason, IMO. The season flies by without demanding too much of your attention. It doesn't choke you...yet. If Goodell has his way and we're playing 18 games and Thursdays and Fridays, etc, he's going to hurt the brand.

As far as the other sports, each of their seasons take wayyyyyyy too long, and as a result the players spend large chunks of the season punching the clock. If you've ever gone to a baseball game in August, or an NBA game in February, and you watched how little effort the players are actually giving on the field/court when the camera isn't directly on them, you understand how ridiculous it is to run those seasons too long. Drop the NBA to 50 games and drop MLB to 82 games. Problem solved.

As for the NHL, please. It's for chicks and closet racists.

 

Is it?

 

Who was not jonesing for some football today?  I know I was.

 

I agree with your points.  Even with 18 games, the casual fan only has to focus for their teams game or the Red Zone channel for a few hours another two Sundays.  The more passionate fans will now have more time playing fantasy football or gambling. 

 

I do not want to see the league expand past 16 games, but if it does what else am I going to do?  Watch more meaningless mid-August baseball and meaningless January NBA, NHL or college basketball games?  Or watch more NFL?  I think the NFL is going to win.

 

Think about it.  From the casual to hardcore fan, we watch pre-season games, Monday, Thursday and several round of Sunday games.  Many of which do not involve our team. 

 

I am not saying the NFL is bullet proof.  I do not seeing more being an issue as far as consumption.  Now, player health...maybe.

[slats]

I don't think going to 18 games will hurt the sport, but I do think the Thursday and Friday night games do. Even MNF sucks now. NFL Sunday is a great thing, and has fans focused on the sport for the entire day. When the Jets play on Thursday, that leaves me free to do something else. I think the league screwed up the draft by spreading it out over three days, spreading out the games is also a bad idea.

I think the current playoff format is also a huge plus, and diluting that would also hurt the league. Everyone knows hockey and basketball playoffs are a joke. Twelve out of 32 teams making the post-season is a good number.

They also shouldn't think about expanding the league beyond the current 32 teams, as talent -especially at the QB position- is already perilously thin.

[Scott Dierking]

Gambling and fantasy geekdom.

[Matt39]

Sixteen games is the major reason, IMO. The season flies by without demanding too much of your attention. It doesn't choke you...yet. If Goodell has his way and we're playing 18 games and Thursdays and Fridays, etc, he's going to hurt the brand.

As far as the other sports, each of their seasons take wayyyyyyy too long, and as a result the players spend large chunks of the season punching the clock. If you've ever gone to a baseball game in August, or an NBA game in February, and you watched how little effort the players are actually giving on the field/court when the camera isn't directly on them, you understand how ridiculous it is to run those seasons too long. Drop the NBA to 50 games and drop MLB to 82 games. Problem solved.

As for the NHL, please. It's for chicks and closet racists.

 

Looking back, the XFL debuted 15 years too early.

[jetsjetsjetss]

the biggest thing that would hurt the brand is people realizing how little action there is when compared to standing around and commercial time

 

supposedly a study found there was only 11 minutes of actual play time in an average nfl game compared to 63 minutes of commercials and 67 of players standing around

[Bleedin Green]

I don't think going to 18 games will hurt the sport, but I do think the Thursday and Friday night games do. Even MNF sucks now. NFL Sunday is a great thing, and has fans focused on the sport for the entire day. When the Jets play on Thursday, that leaves me free to do something else. I think the league screwed up the draft by spreading it out over three days, spreading out the games is also a bad idea.

I think the current playoff format is also a huge plus, and diluting that would also hurt the league. Everyone knows hockey and basketball playoffs are a joke. Twelve out of 32 teams making the post-season is a good number.

They also shouldn't think about expanding the league beyond the current 32 teams, as talent -especially at the QB position- is already perilously thin.

 

Agree with pretty much all of this.  I find myself hardly giving a crap about Thursday or Monday games when it's not the Jets playing.  Of course I'll still have them on, but it's certainly not the same.  The new draft setup absolutely sucks, but was just a desperate attempt by the league to get it into prime time.  I guess not the worst idea in the world for the first round, given that it has a much wider range of appeal than the rest of the draft, but it's also a completely negative impact on those who are interested in the other rounds.

 

As far as the overall league setup, I think it needs to be kept the same, as the schedule, # of teams, # of playoff teams really all does fit together perfectly.  While of course there are exceptions to every rule, it's a pretty clean and straight forward formula that helps avoid a lot of crazy crap you might otherwise see.  Since the Texans came into the league, everything has been all balanced out with the divisions, conferences, and schedules.  As far as the playoffs go, it's more than a high enough percentage of the league making it in as it already is.  It's routine occurrence of there being at least one 9 win team in there every year, often an 8 win team as well, and sometimes even a 7 win team.  The last thing the playoffs need is to be adding a bunch more losing teams into the mix.  It will only devalue the meaning of the regular season games, particularly late in the season, that much more.

[Bleedin Green]

the biggest thing that would hurt the brand is people realizing how little action there is when compared to standing around and commercial time

 

supposedly a study found there was only 11 minutes of actual play time in an average nfl game compared to 63 minutes of commercials and 67 of players standing around

 

While I agree the commercials are completely excessive and beyond annoying, and NFL games can certainly have too much down time at times, I also remember that study you speak of and it was definitely taking a bit of a distorted look at things in an attempt to make their point.  The entire concept was built around discounting every second possible from an NFL game, including all pre-snap time.  I think it's safe to say that there's plenty items of interest going on in the moments surrounding the short time frame from snap to whistle.  I guess it'd be up for debate how much that matters to the "casual" fan, but I think for most of those who are serious fans of the sport have plenty of appreciation for that.

[SenorGato]

Expected a "we're also probably collectively retarded at this point" line in there but did not get it. One of the many signs of downfall is how popular this sport is.

[Sperm Edwards]

the biggest thing that would hurt the brand is people realizing how little action there is when compared to standing around and commercial time

 

supposedly a study found there was only 11 minutes of actual play time in an average nfl game compared to 63 minutes of commercials and 67 of players standing around

 

 

While I agree the commercials are completely excessive and beyond annoying, and NFL games can certainly have too much down time at times, I also remember that study you speak of and it was definitely taking a bit of a distorted look at things in an attempt to make their point.  The entire concept was built around discounting every second possible from an NFL game, including all pre-snap time.  I think it's safe to say that there's plenty items of interest going on in the moments surrounding the short time frame from snap to whistle.  I guess it'd be up for debate how much that matters to the "casual" fan, but I think for most of those who are serious fans of the sport have plenty of appreciation for that.

 

Did they do that same study for baseball? Probably about the same.  Each pitch takes like 1 second.  Most plays where the ball is hit - fair or foul territory - last about as long as T0mShane inside Bevell's rectum (3-5 seconds).  300 seconds for all the pitches = 5 minutes.  Add in another 5 minutes maximum for all times contact is made with a bat (from foul balls to pop flies to home runs).  Sport is so freaking boring.  I can go to a game now & then, but to watch a full 9 innings on TV? I have no idea how I did it for so long as a teenager.  No pu$$y and no kids probably had something to do with it.

 

Then people bring up a sport like soccer where there is constant action, but it's "action" not action going on.  Final score is 1-0 half the time.  Yawn.

 

Basketball has a lot of in-game action (per minute watched), but 1/4 of it is taking the ball up, and there are too many fouls.  Used to be more exciting when everyone averaged over 100 ppg.  Or maybe I just like watching shooting more than low-post backing the ass up or charging & trying to draw a foul.  Too slow or too many whistles.  But it's better today than it was 10-15 years ago.  I guess.

 

Golf is boring.  Never have and never will understand how anyone can watch golf all day long on TV no matter how great some of these top golfers are.

 

Hockey? Meh.  Maybe it's because I never played really.  But when when the refs stop the action to allow/watch fighting, which is against the rules, means they know the sport is boring on its own.