I find this hard to believe

#1
Hoosier_Vol

Hoosier_Vol

Vol Stuck in B1G 10 Hell
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#1
It was difficult to look at 200,000 fans packed into Daytona Speedway and not imagine that auto racing has become one of America's favorite sports. According to a recent Gallup poll, however, auto racing isn't very close. The pollsters asked Americans to name their favorite sport. Football was the easy winner with more than 43% of the voting. Basketball was second with 12% and baseball followed with 11%. Auto racing landed fourth with just 4%. The poll results didn't mean that only 4% of Americans follow auto racing, only that 4% found it to be their favorite sport.
 
#2
#2
ya..that is my argument all the time...they put twice as many fans in the stands but somehow isn't close on "favorite sports" list..apparently they are asking the wrong people
 
#3
#3
i don't, NASCAR has made huge strides to create their brand. i find it as no suprise they are 4th.
 
#5
#5
USAF_Vol said:
Me either. There is no way I could have it ahead of Football.
Click to expand...

for me it's:

1. college football
2. racing
3. NFL
4. NHL
5. everything else

exceptions made for March Madness, the World Cup, the Olympics, etc....
 
#7
#7
That's not really a smart way to do a poll. I am a huge Nascar fan, but my favorite sport is College Football.

That doesn't mean I don't follow races or go to them.
 
#10
#10
Think about it. On a given weekend there is one race with over 200,000 fans.

On a given weekend in fall there can be 50ish DI-A football games, with up to 109,000 in attendance A PIECE.

NASCAR isn't close.
 
#11
#11
No one is saying NASCAR is THE most popular, and the poll shouldn't be any real surprise. Fans in California can't exactly trek across the country to New Hampshire for the races there every weekend while they can go to the races in California more easily. A better comparison would be TV ratings.

NASCAR is also more isolated... it's only in one place on a given weekend while other sporting events are everywhere, i.e. more chances for people to show up.
 
#12
#12
How about this. In SEC country, where a fairly large number of races are held, as well as a large number of the NASCAR fanbase resides

The SEC totaled 6,586,408 fans while averaging 75,706 per game.
Click to expand...

Meaning that on average it takes just 3 SEC league games to eclipse the attendance for the race... on most weekends there are more SEC games than that...
 
#13
#13
tidwell said:
NASCAR is also more isolated... it's only in one place on a given weekend while other sporting events are everywhere, i.e. more chances for people to show up.
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Which is exactly why you can't compare 200,000 fans rooting for any number of 32 drivers to 100,000 fans rooting for one of two teams.
 
#14
#14
There should be more people, because there are more events and more fans for it. No one is denying this. Like I said, TV ratings is a better judge of NASCAR's popularity. While there will be more people in attendance for a given game, there will be many, many more watching the race on TV than there would be watching a game.
 
#15
#15
Rocky Top said:
It was difficult to look at 200,000 fans packed into Daytona Speedway and not imagine that auto racing has become one of America's favorite sports.
Click to expand...

You're able to get 200,000 fans together for Nascar because you have how many ever teams racing against each other at the same time, on the same day and on the same track. With football, you only have 2 groups of fans each game. I guarantee you if every football team somehow played at the same time and in the same stadium, it would shred the Nascar turnout to pieces.
 
#16
#16
Rocky Top said:
The poll results didn't mean that only 4% of Americans follow auto racing, only that 4% found it to be their favorite sport.
Click to expand...
This part is pretty important... while it's obviously not everyone's favorite, a lot of people still follow it. It didn't really start to catch on with a lot of people until recently (in the last 10 years or so), while they already had their other favorite sports for years.
 
#17
#17
Why don't they just look the sports biggest event.

Last years ratings had the Daytona 500 as the 2nd most viewed Sporting event.

Superbowl was first and the NBA Finals was 3rd.


It was something like that, because they talked alot about it on Around the Horn last year...

Anybody got a thing to where you can check the ratings?
 
#19
#19
rwemyss said:
Think about it. On a given weekend there is one race with over 200,000 fans.

On a given weekend in fall there can be 50ish DI-A football games, with up to 109,000 in attendance A PIECE.

NASCAR isn't close.
Click to expand...
well if ya put it that way:eek:k:
 
#20
#20
Polls
bored1.gif
 
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