According to Harris Interactive, when 100 million people watch the game, people tend to notice.
Harris Interactive released a poll on Feb. 5 about Americas favourite sport. A link to the poll is here. The only people surveyed in this entire survey are Americans. Some of you may surprised at the number 5 entry, because I know I was:
Pro Football (DUH!!!!)
Major League Baseball (I thought it would be number 3)
College Football (Thought it would be number 2 if not number 1)
Auto Racing (NASCAR's marketing make it viable)
Hockey (WHAAAAAA!!!!)
Number 5 really surprised me because I thought that most Americans cared more about about professional or college basketball which ranked which were 6 and 7 respectively. Also, men's golf ranked 8. Another thing that shocked me was that bowling at number 11 beat boxing at number 14.
They also mention the change in percentage of followers has risen in pro football, college football, auto racing and hockey. Each rose 6%, 2%, 5% and 3% respectively.
What shocked me was that even though baseball has recorded record revenue, they dropped 8% and pro and college basketball each dropped 2%.
This poll is only measured a certain number of Americans, this isn't a concensus of the general population.
The question was "which sport is your favorite?" All these results show is that hockey is more people's favorite sport than basketball. Basketball could be more popular overall but just not have as many hardcore fans.
I agree with the top 3. Auto racing would never be in my top 5 cause I find it unbelievably boring. I still don't know how anyone can watch an entire race. Besides crashes, does anything happen?
I'm shocked at MLB at #2 - I would have thought them #4 or #5, and would have had this as my expected list:
1. NFL
2. College Football
3. College Basketball (my personal favorite)
4. well, ... MLB
5. Racing (mostly NASCAR)
And Deli - I also find races that routinely run over 90 minutes or so to be boring. A couple of the major races (Indy 500, Daytona 500, ... umm, ... o.k. those two) merit longer time periods and manage to hold my attention. Well, that's a lie too - Daytona holds my attention for the first 20 laps and the final 10 or so. The rest are channel-flippin' time.
In this regard, F1 has their act together - relatively short, intense races. NASCAR and IndyCar would do well to follow suit.
