“America's pastime” is no longer the sport played on a diamond, but on a playing field.
A Pew Research Center poll found that Americans believe football, not baseball, is “America's sport,” and the margin is very wide.
The survey asked 12,000 adults: “If you had to choose one sport as 'America's sport,' even if you don't personally follow it, what would it be?”
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October 7, 2023; London, United Kingdom; NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at the NFL Experience London at Battersea Power Station. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)
This question, found in a larger survey of sports fans in the United States, showed that 53% of Americans believed soccer was America's sport. Baseball was next on the list at 27%.
The rest of the list consisted of basketball (8%), soccer (3%), motorsports (3%), hockey (1%) and “something else” (2%).
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The “something else” section was the Pew Research Center, which allowed pollsters to enter another sport if necessary. Golf, boxing, rodeo and more were written about.
Additionally, when it comes to football, the survey found that it crushed all major demographic groups in the country, whether men and women, older adults and young adults, and ethnicities such as whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans.
A detailed shot of the MLB logo on batting practice balls before the game against the Peoria Javelinas and the Mesa Solar Sox at Sloan Park on Saturday, September 21, 2019 in Mesa, Arizona. (Jill Weisleder/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
However, even though the survey said football is the national sport, that doesn't mean the NFL was the most important thing to 12,000 Americans.
The survey found that 62% of American adults say they do not follow professional or college sports closely, if at all. It also found that 63% of those adults talk about sports with other people “only a few times a month or less frequently.”
Wilson brand footballs are displayed with the NFL logo before the game between the Detroit Lions and the Jacksonville Jaguars at Ford Field on December 4, 2022 in Detroit, Michigan. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
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Only 7% of adults consider themselves “superfans” of sports, which classifies them as those who often talk about sports with others and follow the most popular leagues.
