Football, Baseball, Soccer ?????

When asked to pick their favorite sport, the largest number of adults who follow sports selected professional football (27%), followed by baseball (14%), men’s professional basketball (11%) and auto racing (10%). Pro football’s lead over baseball has widened from seven points in 1994 to thirteen points this year. In 1985, football and baseball were virtually equal (at 24% and 23%, respectively).

Since 1985, The Harris Poll® has tracked the percentage of people who follow various sports and has asked them to identify their favorite sport. Over the last seventeen years, several sports have attracted an increased number of fans:

*Professional football, up from 59% to 60%
*Men’s professional basketball, from 32% to 40%
*Auto racing, from 21% to 31%
*Golf, from 20% to 29%
*Hockey, from 14% to 18%
*Soccer, from 10% to 18%
*Men’s college basketball, from 32% to 33%.

Sports that have fewer fans today than in 1985 include:

*Baseball (which has not totally recovered from the 1994 strike and has played most of the 2002 season under the threat of another strike), down from 54% to 46%
*College football, from 47% to 45%
*Track and field, from 21% to 18%
*Horse racing, down from 21% to only 12%
*Bowling, down from 18% to 13%.

These are the results of The Harris Poll, a nationwide telephone survey conducted by Harris Interactive® among a sample of 1,011 adults from September 19 through 23, 2002.