Americans and Canadians Agree: Tiger is Great!

Americans and Canadians share more than a border…they also agree on their favorite sports star. According to both a new Harris Poll and Harris/Decima survey released today, Tiger Woods remains the favorite for the third straight year among U.S. adults and takes top honors among Canadians as well. However, the lists differ distinctly when it comes to the rest of the Top 10.

According to the recent Harris Poll conducted online by Harris Interactive^® among a nationwide sample of 2,454 U.S. adults between June 9 and 16, 2008 and the Harris/Decima study of 1,009 Canadian adults conducted at the same time:

Base: All U.S. adults

Note: "=" indicates a tie

Base: All Canadian adults

Base: All U.S. adults

Base: All Canadian adults

Different groups have their favorites:

• In the United States, men cite Danica Patrick as their favorite female athlete while for women it is Serena Williams; In Canada, Maria Sharapova was the top choice among men, while women ranked the Williams sisters and Wickenheiser ahead of Sharapova;
• Among U.S. Echo Boomers, Sharapova is the number one female athlete, while for Gen Xers (those aged 32-43) Danica Patrick is their favorite. Serena Williams is number one for both Baby Boomers (those aged 44-62) and Matures (those aged 63+);
• Canadians younger than 25 had Serena Williams in the top spot, while those over the age of 50 preferred Sharapova, followed by Sorenstam and Wickenheiser;
• In the eastern part of the U.S., Derek Jeter jumps to the top spot, while Tiger is tops in all other regions of the country.

According to Harris/Decima President Bruce Anderson, "There are some fascinating patterns to these responses. Canadians love of hockey is easy to spot, but so is the power of regional passions and favorites. Golf stars have become much better known, and broadly popular, but golf still has an appeal that seems to skew to higher income Canadians. Despite the success of Canadian race car drivers such as Jacques Villeneuve and Paul Tracy, the only racer named by Canadians was gender barrier busting Danica Patrick. The fact that young people picked David Beckham says volumes about a generation for whom soccer was a well organized, broadly popularized sport."

Regina Corso, Director of The Harris Poll, said, "Harris Interactive has asked the question ‘Who is your favorite sports star?’ almost every year since 1993, and this year’s Top 10 contains an interesting mix of sports stars. This Harris Poll has three quarterbacks, but not the Super Bowl Champion quarterback. Michael Jordan’s legacy is still very strong, even though hasn’t played basketball for quite a few years now. The popularity of NASCAR is clear as two drivers are on the list, but America’s pastime seems to suffer a bit as there is only one baseball player. Unlike Canada, the NHL is not represented at all on the U.S. list; not one hockey player is in the top 10, nor has one ever been on the list, indicating that the NHL still has some work to do to increase its fan base in the U.S."

This Harris Poll^® was conducted online within the United States between June 9 and 16, 2008 among 2,454 adults, Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income 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.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

Harris/Decima, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harris Interactive, completed 1,009 online surveys among a random sample of Harris/Decima Canadian panel members between June 9 and 16, 2008. In a fashion similar to a telephone study, email addresses from our panel were pulled at random, according to population and gender specifications, in order to make the study representative of the Canadian population by region and gender. When contacted to solicit participation, participants had no prior knowledge of the subject matter of the study. Harris/Decima controls access to the study through passwords to ensure that respondents can participate only one time. Subsequent to completion of the study, the data was weighted for region, age, and gender. Additional information on the Harris/Decima study is available at http://www.harrisdecima.ca/en/releases/.

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