Baseball is known as “America's favorite pastime.” But a recent Pew Research Center survey found that for a majority of Americans, football is “America's sport.”
In August 2023, we asked approximately 12,000 U.S. adults the following questions: “If you had to choose one sport as 'American', even if you don't personally follow it, which sport would it be?” It was part of an investigation.
More than half of Americans (53%) say the American sport is football, about twice as many as say baseball (27%). A much smaller share chooses one of the other four sports we asked: basketball (8%), soccer (3%), auto racing (3%), or hockey (1%). .
We also included an option for Americans to write in another sport. The most common volunteer responses were golf, boxing, rodeo, and ice skating. Other respondents took advantage of this opportunity for fun. Some of the more creative answers included “competitive eating,” “grievance politics,” “reality TV,” and “tipping the cow.”
Ahead of Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11, Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to find out which sports Americans consider the country's sport.
This analysis is based on a survey of 11,945 U.S. adults conducted from August 7 to 27, 2023. All participants are members of the Center's American Trends Panel (ATP). The ATP is an online survey panel assembled through a nationwide random sampling. Address of residence. Address-based sampling provides nearly all U.S. adults with the opportunity to choose. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education, and other categories. Learn more about ATP's methodology here.
Below are the questions and answers used in this analysis, as well as the research methodology.
Across all major demographic groups, when people are asked about American sports, the most common choice is football. It tops the list for men and women, older and younger people, and whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asian Americans alike.
Still, some demographic differences emerge in certain sports. For example, white Americans are more likely than other races and ethnicities to say the national sport is baseball, and Hispanic Americans are more likely than other ethnicities to say the national sport is soccer. Meanwhile, blacks and Asian Americans are more likely than whites and Hispanic Americans to say basketball is the American sport. However, in each of these races and ethnicities, an overwhelming majority say that the national sport is soccer.
Most Americans don't follow sports avidly
Just because Americans consider football their national sport doesn't mean they're watching the NFL season closely for this weekend's Super Bowl XV.
Most U.S. adults (62%) say they don't follow professional or college sports very closely or at all, and a similar share (63%) say they don't talk about sports with others. They answered that it happens several times a month or less. The center's August survey. In fact, only 7% of adults are what are called sports “superfans” — people who follow sports very or very closely. and Talk about sports with other people at least every day.
Note: This section describes the questions and answers used in this analysis, as well as the research methodology.
anna jackson I am an editorial assistant at the Pew Research Center.