April 3, 2024
In our latest national survey, we provided Canadians with a list of 32 different sports and asked them to pick their favourite to watch. Perhaps unsurprisingly, hockey came out on top as the favourite sport to watch, with just under one quarter (22%) of Canadians saying it was their preferred sport. Interestingly, the second-most-popular answer was “None – I don’t watch or follow sports” (12%), followed by soccer (10%) and then basketball (8%).
When looking at regional demographics, those living in both the Atlantic and the Prairie provinces prefer to watch hockey over other sports (30% and 28% respectively), while those living in Ontario (18%) are less likely to report hockey as their favourite sport to watch. Those in Ontario were more split than other provinces, with a wider variety of sports being chosen as favourites.
Half of men (54%) named one of the top four sports as their favourite (hockey, soccer, basketball and baseball), while significantly fewer women (35%) responded this way. These results show that it is more common for women to have a wider range of favourite sports to watch compared to men.
Age demographics show an interesting relationship between favourite sports to watch and generations. Both Gen Xers and Boomers are most likely to respond that hockey is their favoruite sport (25% and 24% respectively), compared to Gen Z and Millennials (13% and 17% respectively). Boomers are significantly more likely to not watch any sports than all other generations, and more Gen Zers prefer watching soccer than any other generation. Just under one fifth (17%) of Gen Z and Millennials state that basketball is their favourite sport to watch, comparatively more than Gen Xers (8%) and significantly more than Boomers (2%).
The question asked was:
If you had to choose, what is your favourite sport to watch?
Results are from an online survey conducted in partnership between Narrative Research and the Logit Group. The survey was conducted between March 12 and 14, 2024 with 1,230 Canadians, 18 years of age or older from the Logit Group’s online Canadian Omnibus. Data were weighted based on the 2016 Census, by gender, age, and region to reflect actual population distribution, and data tables are available upon request.
For more information, please contact:
Margaret Chapman, COO & Partner, Narrative Research – 902.493.3834, mchapman@narrativeresearch.ca
OR
Sam Pisani, Managing Partner, Logit Group – 416.629.4116, sam.pisani@logitgroup.com
Narrative Research (www.narrativeresearch.ca), is a non-partisan, 100% Canadian-owned, research company, certified as a Women Business Enterprise (WBE). Narrative Research provides clients with state-of-the-art research and strategic consulting services.
The Logit Group (https://logitgroup.com/) is a leading North American data collection and market research execution company headquartered in Toronto, conducting large-scale projects for a variety of well-known research agencies and brands. Logit employs industry-best technologies across an array of methodologies, and is independent, experienced and quality-oriented.
