According to a survey from Kantar Sports Monitor, 82 percent of sports fans expect that they will be either more engaged or equally engaged once they return. The survey covered 3,000 national representative respondents over the age of 21 and fielded from June 8 to  June 14.

Other findings from the survey:

  • 56 percent of sports fans agreed, “I’m willing to wait longer for sports to return if doing so means athletes and team employees are assuming less risk to their health.”
  • Among 17 activities that sports fans are looking forward to doing very much, “watching sports on TV” ranks at or near the top.
  • 50 percent of sports fans indicated they’re looking forward to watching sports on TV “very much”; only “celebrating special occasions with friends/family” ranked higher (51 percent), with “go on vacation” (50 percent) and “hang out with friends/family” (49 percent) being comparable.
  • Top sports-related programming engaged in during COVID-19 by sports fans includes watching a replay of classic sporting events (37 percent) and watching sports-related documentaries or movies (29 percent).
  • Percent of sports fans who indicated that they would be extremely/very disappointed if the following seasons were canceled: The NFL season (53 percent); MLB season (42 percent) and NCAA Football (37 percent). In contrast, relatively few sports fans expected to be extremely/very disappointed if the Masters golf tournament (19 percent), Kentucky Derby (17 percent) or Major League Soccer Playoffs (16 percent) were indefinitely postponed or canceled.
  • 71 percent of sports fans indicated that going to a game without crowd controls would be either extremely (46 percent) or somewhat unsafe (25 percent).
  • 56 percent of sports fans indicated that going to a sporting event, concert or another live event that limits capacity to ensure social distancing is either extremely (19 percent) or somewhat unsafe (37 percent).
  • 61 percent of sports fans agreed, “I don’t expect I’ll be able to afford to go to a sporting event anytime soon (57 percent among avid fans, 63 percent among casual fans).
  • 58 percent of sports fans indicated that their health is either “excellent” or “very good” (versus 47 percent of non-sports fans)

The full survey findings are here.