The Sports Marketing Group of Dallas recently unveiled the top 114 most popular sports in America. And wonder of all wonders, NFL football came in first place. Well that wasn't too terribly surprising. Now you can probably guess the rest, right? Pro baseball in second place, followed by basketball, and hockey, right? Wrong.
I hate to break it to all of you hockey fans out there, but your sport came in ranked 40th. My apologies folks, but you got beat out by such important major sporting events as: figure skating (mens, ladies, and pair), Alpine ski racing, billiards, minor league baseball, men's gymnastics, and of course, the ever-popular tractor pulls.
Perhaps these people were confusing hockey with pro wrestling, which came in 30th place. Well, the good news is that hockey did at least manage to beat out snowmobile racing by a single place.
Professional baseball made out somewhat favorably coming in just behind college football, Winter Olympics, and the Summer Olympics. Pro Basketball, however was nudged out by high-school football. You'll be happy to know that some of your favorite sporting events such as Roller Derby and American Gladiators also made the list. Thankfully, though the people surveyed at least had the common decency to rate arm wrestling, dog sledding, frisbee, and skeet shooting higher up on the list.
And now for some good news, I am pleased to inform the Olympic College baseball team that your efforts on the field were voted more popular than billiards, speedskating, LPGA golf, mountain bike racing, and the rodeo--but not quite as popular as women's gymnastics or thoroughbred racing.
In case you're wondering, the "worst of the best" as far as popularity goes was awarded to tour bike racing, biathlons, curling, cricket, and last of all, squash. Yes, apparently asparagus made a valiant try, but simply couldn't compete with the 114th, last-placed finisher in the survey.
After viewing a survey like this, I feel I must ask, "Is this what the sports world is coming too?" I don't know, but if this survey is any indication, we're in a lot of trouble. I mean, really--next thing you know some sports writer out there will probably write an entire article about nothing other than one of these tacky surveys!