The FINANCIAL -- Most football fans don’t think the 2011 National Football League season
will start on time, if at all, and half place the blame on the league’s
team owners.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 624 adults who watch the NFL at least once a week during the season shows that 49% blame the team owners for the current labor situation. Only 29% blame the players in the dispute, while another 21% are undecided.
Team owners imposed a lockout on the players back in March after the two sides failed to come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement to replace the one that expired after the 2010 season. Negotiations between the owners and players association are stalled primarily due to disagreement over how to share the approximately $9 billion in revenue the NFL generates each year.
Seventy percent (70%) of football fans say it’s likely the 2011 season will not start on time, including 38% who see this as Very Likely. Just 21% say it’s not likely the season will be delayed, with only three percent (3%) who say it’s Not At All Likely.
The survey of 624 Football Fans was conducted on June 19-22, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Forty-nine percent (49%) say it’s likely there will be no football season at all this year, but only 11% say this is Very Likely. Forty-two percent (42%) say it’s not likely America will be without the NFL this season, but that only includes five percent (5%) who think this is Not At All Likely to happen.
While roughly half of both men and women blame team owners for the situation, men are slightly more likely than women to place blame on the players. Men are also more likely than women to believe the season will either be delayed or canceled.
Fans under 40 are more likely than their elders to blame the owners for the dispute.
Before the end of the 2010 season, just one out of three professional football fans (33%) were following the labor negotiations.
Last year, the Super Bowl was by far the winner in terms of which professional championship is watched the most.
Before this year’s big game, one-out-of-three Super Bowl viewers said the commercials are better than the game.
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