NFL 2015 News: Popularity is Trending Down, Says Survey
The NFL's popularity may be slipping a bit. In an annual survey of American sports fans that follow at least one sport the NFL's popularity slipped a bit from a year ago. While the number is down and trending down over the last few years the good news for the NFL is remains twice as popular as any other sport.
Adults sports fans were asked to pick one sport the follow and 325 of them picked pro football in America, meaning the NFL. 16 percent picked baseball and that number is up and trending up over the last few years. Thosen umbers are not very surprising as these two leagues are clearly the most popular by most metrics.
The real surprises come with the other sports. College football came in third with 10 percent and that is another number that is trending down over the last few years. Motor Racing, and for the most part in America that means NASCAR, came in fourth place at around seven percent significantly down from its peak back in 205 but a number that is trending up.
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Three sports tied with six percent of the 2,255 adults polled. Those sports were pro basketball, ice hockey, and soccer. It is hard to imaging soccer being as popular as hockey in the U.S., even though soccer is the most popular sport worldwide. Pro basketball is suffering form a lack of a likeable star right now that transcends the sports. Pro basketball's numbers have been in decline since Michael Jordan retired.
Coming in last among these sports polled was college basketball and that seems a bit odd given the popularity of March Madness. This points out an error in how this poll is administered. It seems very likely that the results would shift based upon when those polled are answering. If that was recently post super bowl with the MLB still in off season mode the number could look very different if the poll was taken in the summer months.
