When you think about ‘America’s sport,” traditionally, a lot of us likely think of baseball. As one of their earlier sports invented in the US, it grew to extreme popularity nationwide and very quickly. However, today, it seems another sport may have just ousted it as America’s favorite.
According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, about 53 percent of Americans now think of football, as in American football, not soccer, as “America’s sport. Baseball came in second with about 27 percent.
The survey asked Americans, about 12,000 adults, “If you had to choose one sport as being “America’s sport,” even if you don’t personally follow it, which sport would it be?”
It was reported that along with the new champ, football, and baseball, basketball, soccer, and auto racing also made the list, with significantly less choosing them, with eight percent for basketball and only three percent for soccer and auto racing.
Fox News noted that last place went to hockey, with only one percent of the vote, while “something else” took two percent. That “something else” was written in as either golf, boxing, rodeo, and more.
Clearly, football is the winner. And it’s noted that nothing about it winning the poll depended on demographics. By far, football remained the assumed most popular sport among men, women, whites, blacks, older adults, younger adults, etc.
But as the poll reported, that didn’t mean big leagues like the NFL or the NCAA were just as popular.
In fact, a full 62 percent of those asked said they didn’t closely follow any professional or college sport. Additionally, 63 percent said they only talked about sports “just a few times a month or less.” Only seven percent considered themselves “superfans” who talk about sports often.
Perhaps one of the reasons the sport of football has become so popular, or at least perceived to be, is because of the growing sensation over the NFL’s Super Bowl, football’s most publicized contest of the year.
Last year, about 115.1 million viewers took time to watch the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs for Super Bowl LVII.
America’s sport, indeed.