Which States Love to Watch Sports the Most?

It’s no secret that Americans love watching sports. We crave it. Dedicate nights of the week to it. Plan parties with cute finger-food snacks around it. And get genuinely ticked off when our favorite team loses (permission to be in a bad mood for the month: granted).


Because DIRECTV makes watching live sports just as good (or better) as seeing them live, we at USDirect crunched the numbers to determine the most-watched sports in America (football by a landslide, if you were wondering), and which states watch more sports than others.

Fun Facts

  • First things first: football. Football took first as the overall favorite sport, with 35 states showing more interest in it than the other seven sports we looked at. Golf came in second with 13 states.
  • Kentucky is the only state more interested in basketball than all other sports. They’re also home to the most successful NCAA Division I basketball program in history in terms of both all-time wins and all-time winning percentage (go Wildcats!).
  • West Virginia watches more TV per person than any other state, with a daily average watch-time of four and a half hours.
  • South Dakota has the highest average interest in sports but came in 12th overall.
  • Hawaii comes in dead last with a 49th place rank in interest in both TV/movies and sports, and a 46th place rank for TV watch-time. With so many beautiful beaches to lounge on and things to do, we can’t say we’re surprised

Methodology

Rankings were calculated based on three metrics: TV watch-time, interest of a household in sports, and interest of a household in TV/movies. Data was sourced from product purchases, subscriptions, and surveys. These metrics were weighted equally to determine a final rank.

Each state’s favorite sport was then taken from the average household interest in eight popular sports (baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, skiing, soccer, and tennis).

StateRank: Love to Watch Sports on TVFavorite Sport
West Virginia1Football
Wyoming2Football
Pennsylvania3Football
North Dakota4Football
Delaware5Football
Ohio6Football
New Hampshire7Football
New Jersey8Football
Wisconsin9Football
Iowa10Football
Minnesota11Football
South Dakota12Football
Mississippi13Football
Illinois14Football
Michigan15Football
Kansas16Football
Louisiana17Football
Indiana18Football
Kentucky19Basketball
South Carolina20Football
Connecticut21Baseball
Alabama22Football
Arkansas23Football
Maryland24Golf
Missouri25Football
Oklahoma26Football
Nebraska27Football
Virginia28Football
Tennessee29Football
Georgia30Golf
Idaho31Football
Vermont32Baseball
Montana33Football
Massachusetts34Football
Rhode Island35Football
New York36Golf
New Mexico37Football
Maine38Football
North Carolina39Football
Florida40Football
Arizona41Golf
Oregon42Golf
Texas43Golf
Nevada44Golf
Washington45Golf
Utah46Golf
Colorado47Football
California48Golf
Alaska49Golf
Wasington DC50Golf
Hawaii51Golf

Want to watch more football along with the rest of the nation? Catch live games and touchdowns with DIRECTV.

About USDirect.com

USDIRECT.com is an authorized DIRECTV dealer. All content is the property of USDIRECT.com. Please send all media requests to: media@usdirect.com.

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