Prometheus 6   

Race and class, again…this time, it's sports

Glenn at Hi. I'm Black! got the link to this story from J-Walk:

Dogfighting Tops List of Hated Sports

…No. 1 on the list, by far, is dogfighting, hated or disliked a lot by 81 percent of the public, according to a poll conducted by the Sports Marketing Group in Atlanta. Makes you wonder what the other 19 percent were thinking. [P6: No, makes me wonder IF they were thinking]

No. 2 is pro wrestling, legal but farcical and more than a little trashy. That's also its appeal to those who love it, though more than half the nation can't stand the sight of steroid-pumped madmen slamming each other around the ring — fake or not.

No. 3 is bullfighting, a sport that Americans who haven't been to Spain or Mexico or read Hemingway don't get, never see and, apparently, don't want.

Then there's pro boxing at No. 4, loathed by 31.3 percent of the public. Need we say more than Mike Tyson and Don King?

No real surprises there, considering the violence of those sports and the aversion toward them, especially by women. But this is where the list gets interesting, with class, race and age figuring into the findings.

The genteel PGA Tour is the No. 5 most hated and disliked sport (30.4 percent), followed by the PGA seniors' Champions Tour (29.9), the LPGA Tour (29.2), NASCAR (news - web sites) (27.9), Major League Soccer (27.6) and the ATP men's tennis tour (26.5). That's a lot of people who hate or dislike events that sponsors are backing with billions of bucks.

…Three times as many black fans — 13.4 percent — say they love or like the PGA Tour now compared to 1993, doubtlessly because of Woods.

…But the big story in this list of sports Americans hate most — based on a telephone poll of 1,000 respondents that is a prelude to a larger study later this year — is what comes next: the NBA, with 19.7 percent of the country hating or disliking it, and Major League Baseball, with 17.5 percent strongly against it.

For most of the sports, with the exception of NASCAR, which has grown both in popularity and unpopularity with increased exposure on television, there was little change from the Sports Marketing Group's study that asked the same questions 10 years ago.

For the NBA, though, the hate/dislike responses increased sharply from 11.9 percent a decade ago, while baseball's negative numbers nearly doubled from 9.9 percent.

"In the NBA, there are underlying racial issues and resentment about how the players act, how many get arrested and how much they're paid," said Sports Marketing Group managing director Nye Lavalle. "In baseball, the labor disputes, the huge salaries, the perception of players on steroids and their perceived arrogance are factors."

Ten years ago, only 12.5 percent of white Americans had strong feelings against the NBA. In the poll this year, that soared to 21.1 percent of whites who hated or disliked the NBA. The number of black respondents who felt that way stayed virtually unchanged at under 3 percent.

"There's been a seismic shift in the fan base of the NBA," Lavalle said. "If the league keeps going in the same direction, it's going to be in deep trouble. Baseball is on the decline and it could be dying if it doesn't change the way it's structured."