Poll Shows Nearly Half of Americans aren't Interested in the Super Bowl

According to a recent poll conducted by the Remington Research Group, people don’t care about the Super Bowl this year.

Of the 2,321 registered voters surveyed nationwide, one-in-three said they would be rooting for the Rams while 20% said they would be rooting for the Patriots. However, 44% said they do not care who wins.

The survey continued by asking how many plan on watching the Super Bowl, which 63% said they are looking forward to the game.

More importantly, Americans have a -3% net unfavorable rating of the NFL. There are probably several reasons for this, but I won’t go into others outside of the egregiously missed pass interference call in the NFC Championship game.

As a Saints fan, I am completely turned off by the NFL and the fact that this was missed as most Saints fans are. Of course, many continue to tell Saints fans to get over it and move on, but we never will. Who knows if this was Drew Brees’s last chance at a Super Bowl or whether the Saints will be able to get back to the NFC Championship game and host it in New Orleans. As many NFL media members have said, this is the most obvious missed penalty in NFL postseason history. It included pass interference and a helmet-to-helmet hit.

Apparently, America agrees.

"“36% of Americans believe NFL officials make calls to unfairly help certain teams, while 34% believe officials are fair and 30% are not sure.”"

That has left a bad taste in my mouth for the game and the officiating and while Roger Goodell did address the issue, he didn’t give any real answers that suggest anything good will come from this.

Hopefully, something will, but Goodell reiterated several times during his state of the league address that adding one more human to the equation would only result in more mistakes being made.

I honestly don’t think it’s a bad idea to allow coaches to challenge one penalty per game. How would that slow the game down any more than it already does when coaches challenge the spot of a ball? It seems like a reasonable request and one that could be easily implemented. While many may disagree with me on that, only one challenge means that the coaches will have to use that ability very carefully.

Of course, polls are polls and obviously the whole country can’t be polled very quickly, and they’ve also been wrong, but they do give a general idea of the outlook of the country.

Here are a few of the questions asked to those polled.

Q2: What is your opinion of the NFL?

Favorable: 34%
Unfavorable: 37%
No opinion: 29%

Q5: How interested are you in the upcoming Super Bowl matchup between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams? Very interested, somewhat interested, not at all interested, or only watching for the commercials?

Very interested: 21%
Somewhat interested: 28%
Not at all interested: 42%
Only watching for the commercials: 8%
Not sure: 1%

Q7: Thinking about just this year, have you watched more football or less football compared to previous years?

More football: 20%
Less football: 54%
About the same: 26%

Q9: Do you believe NFL officials make calls to unfairly help certain teams, or do you think they are fair?

Unfair: 36%
Fair: 34%
Not sure: 30%

You can check out the rest of the questions HERE.