Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

America’S Tv Pastime: An Analysis Of Why Professional Sports Fans Prefer Watching The National Football League Over Major League Baseball On Television, Ty Hawkins

McNair Scholars Research Journal

More out of habit than anything else, we still refer to baseball as the national pastime (McAdam, 2004). However, football began making inroads as the most viewed sport as far back as the 1970s. Two decades later, it isn’t much of a contest anymore in terms of viewing popularity (McAdam, 2004). In 2014, 35% of fans called the National Football League (NFL) their favorite sport, followed by Major League Baseball (MLB) (14%), college football (11%), auto racing (7%), the National Basketball Association (NBA) (6%), the National Hockey League (NHL) (5%), and college basketball (Rovell, 2014). Although a wide variety of …