Americans love sports, so much so that a majority of them – 56 percent — will rearrange their schedule to accommodate watching their favorite sport or team. But their fandom also comes with responsibility: just one in 10 will sometimes skip work or school to do so.
According to a new poll by CBS News, America’s favorite sport is football, picked by 58% of sports fans, with baseball a distant second at 12%, followed by basketball (10%), and soccer (6%).
Football fans are more likely to wear their favorite team’s name or logo at least once a month; 42 percent do so at least once a week.
Six in 10 sports fans will sometimes yell at the TV when their favorite team is losing, with 18 percent doing so “all the time.” Nineteen percent of sports fans say they never yell at the TV.
Most (six in 10) say they hardly ever, or never, get depressed when their favorite team loses.
Few sports fans (seven percent) say they are concerned that they might be too obsessed with their favorite team or sport.
What is Your Favorite Sport?
(Among Sports Fans)
Football 58%
Baseball 12%
Basketball 10%
Soccer 6%
Ice Hockey 3%
Car Racing 3%
Something else 6%
This poll was conducted by telephone January 37-31, 2016 among a random sample of 1,000 adults nationwide, of which 539 are sports fans. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News by SSRS of Media, Pa. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones.
The poll employed a random digit dial methodology. For the landline sample, a respondent was randomly selected from all adults in the household. For the cell sample, interviews were conducted with the person who answered the phone.
Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish using live interviewers.
The data have been weighted to reflect U.S. Census figures on demographic variables.
The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus four percentage points. The error due to sampling for the sports fans could be plus or minus four percentage points. The error for other subgroups may be higher and is available by request. The margin of error includes the effects of standard weighting procedures which enlarge sampling error slightly.
This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.
