The National Football League has long been considered the most popular of the four major sports in the United States. In fact, its popularity has started to spill over to other aspects of the entertainment world. Now seen as a part of the American culture more than anything, the league itself has started to take a PR hit due to a number of off-field issues.
While we have no idea if this new study released by Harris Poll has anything to do with the league’s public image, it’s still rather interesting (h/t Business Insider).
As you can see in the study, the NFL’s popularity has taken somewhat of a hit around the United States recently. A total of 32 percent of fans chose pro football as their favorite sport this past year with baseball coming in at 16 percent.
That may seem like a huge gap, but it has narrowed significantly since 2011 when the NFL had a whopping 23 percent lead over MLB.
There could be multiple reasons for this. At its height, the NFL’s popularity didn’t seem to be sustainable. It was going up against a sport in baseball that was embroiled in a controversy of its own, steroids and PED’s. And like we have seen throughout this nation’s history, baseball has always been a constant. Going up against that history, the NFL likely couldn’t envision remaining so far ahead of America’s Pastime.
This isn’t to say that MLB will ever catch up to professional football. That time surely has passed. Instead, it just goes to show us that baseball itself isn’t anywhere near as unpopular as some might want to imagine.
In relation to the rest of the sports world, it’s football and baseball and then everyone else.
College football is at 10 percent with auto racing coming in at seven percent and professional basketball finishing fifth at six percent.
Interestingly enough, Business Insider pointed out that basketball had caught baseball during the Michael Jordan era, only to see its popularity dwindle in comparison since. Considering the vast amount of young stars and the entertaining product we see today, it’s possible that the NBA’s popularity will spike at some point soon.
Though, as expected, football and baseball will continue to draw the most interest of the American public.