political views tied towards hobbies

[freepcrusher]

One thing I've been thinking over is if there is a correlation between what sports you watch and you're political views (if any)

I've always assumed that an NFL fan was more likely to be republican than an NBA fan and an NBA fan was more likely to be a democrat than a NFL fan. The reason I see this is because I've always felt football to be Exhibit A of "American Exceptionalism" as it has failed to take hold in other countries. Basketball, while not as international as soccer, tends to have more fans in other countries.

It also seems as if football is more of a 'merkin sport so to speak. Although basketball is popular in rural Indiana or Kentucky, football seems to be much more of a rural sport. Although Odessa is not a rural area, its basically a giant small town. Football also has more of that sort of macho kill all the bad guys attitude a la Chuck Norris or John Wayne.

Basketball seems to be more of an urban sport. It seems like basketball is more popular in the big cities of the northeast, great lakes, and the west coast (LA, NY, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit).

This of course is assuming people at football or basketball games vote at all. But would you agree or disagree with my hypothesis?

[freepcrusher]

i would also say certain shopping places tend to attract certain types.

At Wal-Mart, it is a mix between poor-minority democrats and the Mike-Huckabee-is-the-second-coming-of-Christ republicans.

The people who shop at target could be pretty much anyone of any belief whether they are pub, dem, indy, green, libertarian, apathetic etc

Cabela's I would guess would be hard-core republican white male who when asked about Obama replies "Hayz a f---in' fa**ot"

Opera and Theater are probably democrats

Starbucks I'm guessing would be democrats who used to be republicans, but got turned off by the southerness of the party


Half the people at a Cracker Barrel look like they came out of a 912 rally

[freepcrusher]

In my personal experience, hockey fans tend Republican whereas baseball fans tend Democratic, although I can't really beat BRTD's logic.

Soccer definitely has the most liberal fanbase though. I watched some World Cup game at a bar and the crowd erupted in cheering when Bill Clinton came on for some reason.

What we really need though is some databases and regression tests, forget this speculation.

I would guess that most hockey fans are apathetic or dem. Despite Palin trying to reach out to the hockey fan demographic, a lot of hockey fans are from Minnesota, which is a pretty democratic state


Baseball fans do have some of the stereotypical ethnic catholic in New York or Boston who is a big Yankees or red sox fans; but outside of that it is a pretty rural sport.

I’ve actually wanted to do a legitimate nationwide survey of this but I don’t have the money to conduct such a thing.

[freepcrusher]

fans of country music, college football, and the TV comedy show "Friends" favored Republican Bob Dole. 

The "Friends" thing really surprises me. Friends is very much about a stereotypical democratic leaning demographic (young people) who are single or shacking up (also dem leaning) and live in a big city (even more likely to vote dem).

Country music doesn't surprise me and neither does college football.