Wednesday, June 27, 2007
What I learned from the Harris Interactive Poll
So yesterday the results from the Harris Poll asking fans simply, “Who is your favorite athlete?” were released. The general poll numbers posted no great surprises: Tiger came in at No. 1, followed by Derek Jeter, Michael Jordan, Brett Favre and LeBron James. For women, Serena Williams topped the list, followed by Danica Patrick, Venus Williams, Mia Hamm and Maria Sharapova.
There were, however, a few oddities. Harris said that race factored into the decision, with blacks preferring Serena (makes sense), whites preferring Danica (pretty much makes sense) and Hispanics preferring Sharapova (??????).
Other things of interest:
-) Apparently people ages 18 to 29 are called Echo Boomers (children of boomers, perhaps), while 30 to 41 is Generation X. Being 30, I thought I was part of Generation Y, but apparently Generation Y has been absorbed by the echo boomers. And I’m not there anyway. Who knew?
-) The favorite athlete of both echo boomers and Generation X is Michael Jordan, who most echo boomers probably know better through reputation than anything, while Tiger Woods is tops for Baby Boomers (42 to 60) and Matures (61 and over). Is this because old people like golf and younger people prefer basketball? It’s the only explanation I can come up with.
Anyway, here’s the link to the poll so meaters can explore for themselves. Thoughts?
The top 10 also tells you a lot about baseball's standing in the sports scene -- only Jeter makes the list, while four NBA players are on it (one retired), and three NFL stars. Baseball is on par with golf and Nascar.
Also, Laila Ali (misspelled in the Harris Poll) benefits from the Dancing With the Stars factor, going from unranked to number seven on the women's poll despite spending just 56 seconds in the ring this year.
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