http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051227/nytu077.html?.v=32 Code: TABLE 1 FAVORITE SPORTS "If you had to choose, which ONE of these sports would you say is your favorite?" Base: All adults who follow more than one sport CHANGE 1985 1989 1992 1993 1994 1997 1998 2002 2003 2004 2005 1985 - 2005 % % % % % % % % % % % % Pro football 24 26 28 24 24 28 26 27 29 30 33 +9 Baseball 23 19 21 18 17 17 18 14 13 15 14 -9 College football 10 6 7 8 7 10 9 9 9 11 13 +3 Auto racing 5 4 5 6 5 5 7 10 9 7 11 +6 Men's college basketball 6 10 8 8 8 6 4 4 6 6 5 -1 Hockey 2 3 3 3 5 4 3 3 3 4 5 +3 Men's pro basketball 6 7 8 12 11 13 13 11 10 7 4 -2 Men's golf 3 4 4 6 5 6 4 4 5 4 4 +1 Boxing NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 2 2 NA Men's soccer 3 2 2 1 3 3 4 3 3 3 2 -1 Horse racing 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 -2 Men's tennis 5 4 4 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 1 -4 well men's pro basketball only get 4%, so 2% isn't too bad for men's soccer. That's about 6 million people (2% out of 300 million). The bad part is that maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of them support domestic soccer.
The key though is the question asks for your *one* favorite. Expand it to "which sports do you normally follow?" and I'd bet you money that men's pro basketball goes up considerably and men's soccer shows almost no change.
Not quite. Back in 2003, the Harris Poll asked the question, ""Please tell me which of these sports you follow." Not surprisingly, pro basketball did well at 40%. But soccer didn't do too bad, with 15% of adult Americans saying they follow the sport -- quite a bit better than your "no change" claim. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=403
From the poll... It's a negligable change. 28 people out of 1402 said they followed soccer primarily. Also from the poll... It's not like there is any MLS going on right now, either. Thx, Jay!