MUMBAI: A December 2017 Gallup poll has reinforced American football’s position as the US’ number one spectator sport although it has lost a lot of its shine in the last decade.
The sport was picked by 37 per cent of US adults polled by Gallup as their favorite sport to watch. The next-most-popular sports are basketball, favored by 11 per cent, and baseball, favored by nine per cent.
Though football retains its top spot, its popularity has slipped since peaking at 43 per cent in 2006 and 2007. In 2008, it dipped slightly to 41 per cent and dropped again to 39 per cent in 2013 — the last time the question was asked before the December 2017 poll.
For the past half-century, football has been America’s game, unrivaled by any other spectator sport. Even the challenges it currently faces have had only a small effect on Americans’ likelihood to consider it their favorite spectator sport. Though Gallup’s October polling showed a decline in the percentage of Americans saying they are fans of professional football, the drop-off did not occur among college football fans, and it may not have included the hardcore NFL fans who consider it their favorite sport. Football has been the nation’s favourite spectator sport since 1972.
And for all spectator sports in the U.S., there is one other sobering statistic to consider. The number of Americans who say they do not have a favorite sport has grown from 8% in 2000 to 15% now — an increase larger than for any sport during that time.
Reasons for the drop
In 2014, a video of National Football League star running back Ray Rice punching his wife and dragging her unconscious body from an elevator shocked the nation. It pushed the already-simmering issue of NFL players’ domestic assaults into national prominence, sparking protests and calls for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to resign.
Protests by NFL players during the pregame playing of the U.S. national anthem in 2016 and 2017 drew strong criticism from President Donald Trump and conservative pundits.
Youth turning away from football
The age group that determines the future of spectator sports — 18- to 34-year-olds — are the age group least likely to favor football. But even among them, football tops all other sports by a comfortable margin. Soccer and baseball show meaningful differences by age, with soccer appealing more to adults younger than 55 and baseball more to adults aged 55 and older.
Among the Gallup poll’s other analyses of the demographic preferring football as a spectator sport are –
* Women were less likely than men to pick football as their favorite sport even before the issue of players’ assaults on women exploded in 2014, and that still holds true.
* Conservatives, in spite of the national-anthem protests the last two years, are only slightly less likely than moderates to favor football, and are more likely to do so than liberals.
* Parents of children under 18, who might be expected to be most affected by the publicity surrounding concussion risks football players face, are about as likely as others to pick football as their favorite.
The Gallup poll concludes that the fact that the sport has weathered the attacks on it so far is no guarantee that it will do so over the long run. ‘Football’s relatively low popularity among younger Americans, combined with ever-growing evidence of the physical and mental damage the sport does even at the high school level, could jeopardize its standing in the decades ahead,’ it notes.
