The National Football League, the sport which once held favored nation status nationally, and particularly among Republicans. Has now seen its favorability numbers crash nationally, particularly among Republicans.
Fox News released a poll on Thursday, which showed that NFL popularity has tanked 18% since 2013. With the biggest decline in favorability coming from the “Grand Old Party.”
One of the key takeaways of the poll, was the not just the steep drop in the NFL’s popularity, but how quickly that popularity evaporated. The poll found that 46% of respondents had a positive view of the league, that’s a bad number. Yet, it’s even worse when you consider that just four years ago those numbers were reversed, with 64% having a positive view of the league.
The findings did not bode well when factoring the negatives either. The survey found that 41% had a negative view of the league, four years ago that number was at 19%. In other words, the NFL has more than doubled its negatives in the last four years.
The steepest declines in favorability came from Republicans. The poll showed a whopping 37% drop in NFL favorability amongst Republicans, with 14% among Independents, and 6% among Democrats.
“If the NFL were a political candidate, alarm bells would be going off in campaign headquarters,” says Democratic Pollster Chris Anderson who conducts the Fox News Poll with Republican Pollster Daron Shaw.
The NFL has definitely become a political candidate, but unfortunately for Republicans, it only cares about one party.