Red sport, blue snort: political ideology and the popularity of sports in the United States

This exploratory study examines correlations between political ideology and the popularity of 53 sports in the United States using geographical units of analysis. Regional interest in sports was measured using Google Trends search data from Nielsen's 207 designated media market areas. Voting data from the 2020 Presidential Election (percent Trump vote) was used to characterise each area's political ideology. A measure of the sports' cultural dominance was developed through a large-scale, computer-aided content analysis of sports news. Areas with high levels of Trump support tended to favour dominant sports like football, basketball and baseball and showed less interest in fringe sports like ultimate Frisbee, rock climbing and badminton. These correlations generally held for large, mid-sized and small areas. There were, however, sports that contradicted this relationship. Focusing on outliers and inconsistent cases, the study concludes by suggesting next steps for establishing a robust link between political orientation and sport popularity.