Polling highlights When we need quick, reliable data on an emerging topic, the Global Sport Institute often partners with OH Predictive Insights, a Phoenix-based market research company that provides us with public opinion surveys and data analytics. These snapshot polls offer a timely glimpse into the ever-evolving issues impacting sport.
Sports and politics As both the college football season and the 2020 presidential election approached, there was quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding both. When former President Trump stated that he had played a role in bringing back Big 10 football amid the Covid-19 pandemic, we conducted a poll, shared exclusively with Time magazine, among undecided swing-state voters who identified as college football fans, to determine the influence, if any, of these assertions.
Fans and diversity awareness In conjunction with the release of our newlyexpanded field study on coaching in the NFL and the impact of the Rooney Rule, we began to wonder how much the public knew, or didn’t know, about the NFL and the diversity within its leadership ranks.
Transgender athletes The summer of 2021 brought the discourse around transgender athlete participation to a new high. With several states introducing new bills focused on sport participation, we were interested in identifying the general public’s viewpoints and overall understanding of the matter.
Among undecided voters in key battleground states who identify as college football fans, 83% said that former President Trump’s statement had no effect on whom they would support in the 2020 presidential race.
NFL fans overestimated the actual number of head coaches of Color in the league. Just 7% of those polled correctly guessed the number (four), while 30% of respondents guessed that over half of NFL teams have a head coach of Color. When asked how many such coaches were acceptable for the league, only 2% said four head coaches of Color was an acceptable number; 55% said the league should have more than 16 head coaches of Color.
Of those who responded, 41% believe that refusing to allow transgender athletes to compete in the category of their gender identity would harm the athletes mentally or emotionally; 10% thought transgender people should be banned from sports; and 49% thought allowing trans girls to compete in girls’ sports would have a negative impact, while that percentage for boys sports was lower, at 40%.
International poll On behalf of the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University, Latino Decisions in coordination with Lucid implemented an international online survey of adults in February of 2021. Some of the topline data included information on sex, gender and equity in sport.
When asked “Do you believe that women and men should receive the same pay for coaching university teams?,” 72% said yes, 11% said no and 17% said they didn’t know.
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