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ESPN Sports Poll: NHL Avid Fan Interest At 12-Month High In July
The NHL saw a 12-month high in interest among regular and avid sports fans in July, when the league's free-agency period got underway, according to data from ESPN Sports Poll, a product of market research firm TNS. The NFL, NBA, figure skating and MMA all saw 12-month lows in regular fan interest in July. Also, a low of 33.9% of fans said they were at least a little bit interested in MMA in July after the sport recorded its most popular month ever in the poll in June. Minor league baseball in July saw its lowest level of avid fan interest in the last year. The chart below lists fan and avid fan interest levels among major sports for the month of July, along with comparisons to each respective sport's 12-month average, all-time high and all-time low. ESPN Sports Poll has been keeping data on fans since '94 (ESPN Sports Poll).
---------- FANS -------------------- AVID FANS ----------League/
SportJuly '0912-month Avg.Record HighRecord LowJuly '0912-month Avg.Record HighRecord LowNFL63.8%69.2%77.7%55.1%31.1%33.2%40.5%19.5%College
Football57.3%61.4%69.3%52.1%23.2%24.8%29.6%14.7%MLB60.8%59.8%67.0%33.0%19.8%20.3%25.5%7.1%NBA47.0%51.2%64.7%39.5%15.9%15.6%24.5%9.4%College
basketball47.8%50.5%59.3%42.5%15.7%16.5%23.8%11.0%Extreme/
action sports46.9%46.6%53.4%39.8%9.9%11.0%15.3%9.3%Figure Skating 43.0%46.4%64.4%41.4%10.6%10.7%20.1%9.1%Boxing 38.8%38.7%45.1%28.2%12.1%11.4%15.9%4.8%NASCAR 35.3%38.6%53.8%31.8%11.6%12.9%18.7%10.0%MMA 33.9%36.1%39.2%31.7%14.2%13.7%17.3%9.5%Minor League
Baseball37.1%35.9%43.2%27.0%3.8%4.9%7.7%3.2%PGA Tour 35.8%35.6%42.5%30.0%8.3%9.1%12.8%7.3%Horse Racing 34.4%35.3%42.7%26.2%6.3%6.5%9.5%4.4%NHL 36.0%34.1%47.1%25.8%8.6%7.5%11.6%4.4%WNBA 31.5%32.6%48.0%28.2%5.6%5.7%10.2%3.5%WTA 32.9%30.7%41.5%26.2%6.9%5.8%8.6%3.6%ATP World
Tour31.6%29.7%34.5%25.0%5.8%5.6%7.6%3.4%Int'l soccer 31.7%29.4%40.0%5.6%8.2%7.6%11.4%0.9%IndyCar 27.1%29.4%35.2%21.7%5.8%4.9%7.0%2.8%NHRA 25.5%28.6%34.0%21.3%9.0%7.8%10.5%4.4%MLS 29.2%27.8%35.0%10.1%6.3%6.0%9.0%1.3%
