Only 5% of Americans call the NBA their favorite sport
In the annual survey conducted The Harris Poll, the NFL is still the most popular sport among American adults, easily outdistancing the second-most-popular sport, Major League Baseball.
Of those surveyed, 33% of American adults picked pro football as their favorite sport, up from 32% a year ago, but still behind its peak in 2011 at 36%. Meanwhile, the number of people who picked baseball dropped from 16% in 2014 to 15% this past year. At its peak popularity in 2011, the NFL had a 23% lead over MLB. That gap is now just 18%.
Meanwhile, the popularity of pro basketball (NBA) drops to 5%, behind college football and auto racing, a place the sport has held consistently since the Michael Jordan era when the NBA nearly caught MLB in popularity.
