OT: Sports fans, especially college football fans, are more likely to be Republican
So says a new study (I'm assuming this is not an April Fool's Joke; it came out last night).
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/03/sports_viewers.php
Some of the results are not that surprising to me (WNBA and MLS fans are Democrat, NASCAR and golf fans are republican), but I was quite surprised at how Republican the results for college football are.
Is that you?
1980's Boston Celtics?
I'd like to see the representation for "none of the above". We like sports too.
..but I'm not going to touch it with a ten foot "poll."
never mind I don't need neg-banged by either party.
That doesn't surprise me, I would have guessed that.
Interesting stuff, I was really worried that this was going to descend into total, partisan chaos when I saw the thread title.
In addition to the demographics (sports more popular in the south tend to lean Republican), I wonder if the sports costs matter as well. While Democratic voters tend to have the higher levels of education (this was the best I could quickly find), Republican voters tend to dominate the higher income levels. Many of the sports with high levels of support for the Republicans tend to have higher costs of entry. Football, hockey, and golf are relatively expensive and require a lot of specialized equipment while soccer and basketball are pretty cheap--ball and a net.
Just a thought.
I think the cost of playing definitely is a factor for some of these sports (notably hockey and golf), but I don't think it applies in the case of soccer. Soccer fans are frequently white suburbanites (the children of the "soccer mom" demographic). In their case I think it is more generational, as soccer's appeal is strongest among the under-30 group (which likewise tends to lean Democratic).
It's age--very simple explanation. Pro wrestling fans are mostly young. Even in red states, young people are more likely to vote Dem. Same thing with monster trucks. I'd say age is the biggest determinant for most of the sports, aside from things like golf (income level) and WNBA (gender).
Heh, when I started my response yours wasn't up yet, although I guess I did add the voter turnout explanation to it.
I have a theory on the WWE surprise:
1) Young voters, at least right now, skew strongly Democrat nationally, moreso than any age bracket.
2) Young people have historically had the lowest voter turnout.
If WWE fans are overwhelmingly young (like under 25, under 30), that would explain both the Democrat lean and the low voter turnout.
If I had to pick a region of the country least interested in college football it'd be the east coast/New England. Leaving them out certainly skews things to the right.
On the flip side, that region is strongly into baseball. I would have initially thought that baseball fans would lean Republican, but the sport's popularity in the heavily Democratic Northeast probably helps to keep it balanced nationally.
Also funny to me was the fact that the NBA is solidly democratic but college bball is decently republican. My guess is that it correlates to football - even if you don't care about Arkansas basketball, if you REALLY care about Arkansas football you'll support the Razorbacks anyway.
It makes sense. I think a lot of the 'Urban' crowd, don't have allegiances to colleges, but will support their cities team.
Nascar fans are mostly Democratic, too.
They had the third highest Republican skew...
In the 2004 election, the Democrats attempted to court "NASCAR Dads" in an effort to regain the southern, white, working-class vote. It probably had more to do with not liking John Kerry than disagreeing with the democratic agenda, but the effort failed miserably.
Thanks for sharing this. The NCAAF stat doesn't surprise me much, however, the MiLB placement is very surprising. Small/ mid-sized American cities leaning Dem? Wouldn't have guessed that.
In related news, for any East Coasters, the deal to move a Tigers MiLB affiliate to Norwich, CT was finalized today.
If you polled 100,000 attendees at WWE and monster truck events about Obama, 95% of them would say he's a Kenyan Fascist Muslim Socialist hell-bent on destroying the moral fiber of this country with his evil Obamacare health plan that employs jackbooted Chicago thugs to drag Grandma away to the death panels.
Have you been to a WWE or monster truck jam? 50% of the people are not there to watch the actual event; they are there to make fun of the people who are there to watch the event.
Besides, you've got it wrong. Obamacare is a godless-liberal plot to make biofuels out of aborted babies. Him lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling today is just a cover for his real plan for energy independence.
As does the data here. I think of wrestling and monster trucks as pastimes that especially appeal to lower-middle-class audiences. And how would one describe said groups politically? Generally Democratic, and fairly apathetic overall.
You like your negs over easy?
Thought better of it.
Males, particularly white males (moreso in the past year) identify themselves as conservative or republican than liberal or democrat. The more a sport is popular among males vs females, the more "conservative" their political affiliation will become.