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With the World Cup at its peak and baseball's pennant race in full swing, a new YouGov poll finds that American football has a commanding lead over other sports in the battle for Americans' hearts — even before the NFL's July training camps open.

YouGov asked Americans to choose between pairs of sports. Do they like football or baseball more? Soccer or ice hockey? Baseball or basketball? All respondents were asked about all 10 unique combinations of the five sports. For each pair they had to either pick their preferred sport, or skip.

The results confirmed the massive cultural footprint of American football. 65% of Americans prefer football to basketball, its closest competitor. 69% prefer football over baseball, 71% prefer it over soccer, and 76% prefer it over ice hockey.

Americans are closely divided about whether they prefer baseball or basketball (48% vs. 52%). Soccer narrowly beats hockey in popularity (54% vs. 46%). But in the shadow of football, each of the other four sports included in the poll has its partisans. Even the least popular sport, hockey, is preferred over football, the overall champ, by one-quarter (24%) of Americans with a preference.

The popularity of each sport can vary between groups. For example, among Black Americans, basketball far outpaces everything but football: 90% of Black Americans prefer basketball to hockey, 83% prefer it to soccer, and 82% prefer it to baseball.

Soccer, by contrast, is especially popular among Hispanic Americans: 67% prefer it to hockey, 56% to baseball, and 53% to basketball.

And many white Americans prefer baseball to other sports: 63% choose it over hockey, 64% over soccer, and 54% over basketball.

Football, though, beats out all of the other four sports among Black, Hispanic, and white Americans.

Older adults are especially likely to like baseball more than other sports. Majorities of those 45 and older prefer baseball to basketball (61%), hockey (73%), and soccer (74%). Younger adults, in turn, are more likely to prefer soccer: 61% prefer soccer to baseball and 66% prefer it to hockey, while views on basketball are closely divided (46% prefer soccer vs. 54% who prefer basketball). American football is the champ among both age groups.

Overall, a majority of Americans say they're at least somewhat interested in sports. 24% of Americans are very interested in sports, while 33% are somewhat interested, 16% not very interested, and 27% not at all interested.

Interest in sports is higher among men than women: 69% of men are at least somewhat interested in sports, compared to 44% of women. Adults under 45 aren't more likely than older adults to be at least somewhat interested in sports, but they are more likely than older adults to say they're very interested (29% vs. 19%).

Methodology: The July 7 - 9, 2026 poll was conducted among 1,099 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov's opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, U.S. region, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent's most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 33% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4.0%.

Image: Getty (Douglas Sacha)

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