The Harris Poll^® #6, January 30, 2004

Widespread Belief that Super Bowl Players Use Steroids

More than130 million Americans expect to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday
Most Super Bowl viewers like the ads as well as the game
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by Humphrey Taylor

It is widely believed that many of the players in Sunday’s Super Bowl have taken steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. A new Harris Poll finds that a third of public have no opinion; they are not sure whether or not any Super Bowl players have used performance-enhancing drugs. Virtually everybody else, 66% of all adults and 72% of those who expect to watch the Super Bowl believes that at least some of the players have used these drugs.

The 66% of all adults who believe some players have used performance-enhancing drugs includes 29% who think they have been taken by forty percent or less of the players, while 25% believe that more than half of the players have done so. The median response is 50%, which means that half of those with an opinion one way or the other believes that 50% or more of Super Bowl players have taken them, while half believes that 50% or less haven not taken them.

These are some of the results of a survey of 3,778 adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive between January 19 and 28, 2004.

Almost two-thirds (65%) of all adults say they expect to watch this Sunday’s Super Bowl. This includes not only most men (73%) but also a substantial majority of women (57%).

There are surely occasions when many viewers dislike the TV commercials which interrupt their viewing, but the Super Bowl is not one of them. Fully 92% of those who expect to watch the Super Bowl say they like the ads and half (51%) say they like them a lot. Only 6% don’t like them.

Humphrey Taylor is the chairman of The Harris Poll^®, Harris Interactive.

"Do you expect to watch the Super Bowl on February 1^st?"

Base: All Adults

"How do you feel about the TV ads during the Super Bowl?"

Base: Expect to watch Super Bowl (65% of all adults)

Percentages may not add up exactly due to rounding.

"If you had to guess, what percentage of players in the Super Bowl do you think take, or have taken, steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs?"

* Less than 0.5%

** Of those with an opinion.

Percentages may not add up exactly due to rounding.

The Harris Poll^® was conducted online within the United States between January 19 and 28, 2004 among a nationwide cross section of 3,378 adults. Figures for age, sex, race, education and number of adults in the household were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. "Propensity score" weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus three percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, and weighting. It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. This online sample is not a probability sample.

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W20447
Q1205, Q1210, Q1215