Rockets are number one popularity wise in Houston

Well tied with the Astros actually. Ahead of the Texans ( ).

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/1558549



Sept. 3, 2002, 11:42AM

Phone poll: Football city's favorite sport
By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
PHONE POLL RESULTS
• What's your favorite local pro sports team?
1. Rockets: 26%
Astros: 26%
3. Texans: 20%
4. Comets: 12%
5. Aeros: 2%
Other/no answer: 15%
• Note: Does not equal 100 due to rounding

As fans rev up for the Texans' regular-season debut Sunday at Reliant Stadium, a new poll of Houston-area residents shows that football is the city's favorite spectator sport.

A telephone survey of 508 residents of Harris, Fort Bend and Brazoria counties, conducted last week for the Chronicle by pollster Richard Murray of the University of Houston, shows that eight of 10 area residents express at least moderate interest in spectator sports and that football exceeds other sports in interest levels locally. However, residents still named the Astros and Rockets more often than the newcomer Texans as their favorite pro sports team.

Twenty-one percent of respondents express "very high" interest in spectator sports. Twenty-eight percent have high interest, and 31 percent express moderate interest, according to the poll, which has a margin for error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Murray, who also conducts political polls for the Chronicle, said he isn't surprised by the affinity most Houston-area residents have for sports. Nor is he surprised by the fact that football, the unofficial national sport of Texas, emerged from the poll as the area's most popular sport.

What may be surprising for some, he said, is the level to which sports interests have become fragmented as Houston's population has changed over the last two decades.

Although 73 percent of respondents express at least moderate interest in football, Murray said, "If we had asked this question 10 years ago, football would have ranked much higher.

"I think we have a pretty good sports community here, but we are seeing fragmentation in sports interests," he said. "Part of it is the changing demographics. The generation, for example, that grew up listening to Southwest Conference football is passing from the scene. There is an incredible array of choices now that people didn't have 10 years ago."

The poll's findings also reflect the frequently colorful, always unpredictable nature of sports in general and of Houston sports in particular.

For example, the second-rated sport behind football in terms of high and very high levels of interest is not baseball, the traditional national pastime, but basketball. Forty-four percent of respondents express high or very high interest in that sport, compared with 33 percent for baseball.

Taking the top three levels of interest into account, the totals are 73 percent for football, 71 percent for basketball and 60 percent for baseball.

Part of that difference may reflect the fact that the poll was taken last week, when baseball players were threatening to strike before reaching a settlement with owners on Friday.

But part also reflects a new interest in basketball spawned by the success of the two-time NBA champion Rockets, the four-time WNBA champion Comets, who have boosted the sport's profile among women, and the Rockets' recent drafting of Chinese star Yao Ming, who could become the NBA's first superstar of Asian descent.

Behind the big three of football, basketball and baseball, boxing had the highest level of fan affinity, with 50 percent of respondents expressing at least moderate interest, followed by soccer at 44 percent, tennis at 41 percent, golf at 40 percent and auto racing at 39 percent. Hockey, the fourth major team sport in the United States, trailed at 30 percent.

Among individual teams, 61 percent follow the expansion Texans very closely or somewhat closely. The Rockets also check in at 61 percent, followed by the Astros at 59 percent and the Comets at 39 percent. Twenty-six percent of respondents each lists the Astros and Rockets as their favorite team, followed by the Texans at 20 percent and the Comets at 12 percent.

Still, for a team that won't play its first official game until Sunday night at $449 million Reliant Stadium, the Texans are emerging as a strong fan favorite.

"It's good to see the passionate level for sports and for football in general," said Texans senior Vice President Jamey Rootes. "We don't go out with the intention of converting people. We have our plan, and we hope that fans will gravitate toward us as we put that plan into action."

But the Texans still have a way to go before they own Houston lock, stock and barrel. Thirty-nine percent of poll respondents identify the Texans as their favorite NFL team, but 15 percent favor the Dallas Cowboys -- the Texans' opening-game opponent this Sunday -- and 4 percent still cling to the Tennessee Titans, the former Houston Oilers.

Football's decline in Houston in the 1990s, coupled with the changing nature of Houston's population -- only 80 percent of current residents, Murray said, were born in the United States -- opened the door for other sports to take hold. Some are identified with a particular ethnic group, such as Hispanics with soccer, and Asians, since Yao's acquisition by the Rockets, with basketball.

Yao's addition to the Rockets, for example, apparently is a major reason they showed up so well in the poll despite the fact they failed to make the playoffs last season and finished last in the NBA in attendance.

"I think our fans are pretty resilient," said Tim McDougall, the team's vice president for marketing. "We've gotten a boost from Yao, but I think we also have a lot of diehard fans that are just waiting for the right team to give them some hope.

"We're working very hard to put out the invitation for people to come to our games and to be part of something big."

Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr., meanwhile, believes baseball's resiliency and the nature of the game will help it bounce back from difficult times caused by labor disputes in the last decade.

"Even when the Texans start to play, they're going to be playing only once a week," McLane said. "In baseball, it's a new story every day. A lot of the average fans are drifting toward football as the season approaches, but we have a lot of real solid baseball fans in Houston. No other sport can say that it draws up to 3 million fans a year."

RESOURCES
Graphic:
• How pro-sports is Houston?

Although the poll focused on professional teams, respondents also were asked to list their favorite college programs. The University of Texas had the largest contingent of hard-core support, with 20 percent of respondents describing themselves as "very interested" in the Longhorns' progress, but the top draw across the top two categories was the University of Houston.

Forty-five percent of respondents said they were very interested or somewhat interested in the Cougars, compared with 43 percent for Texas, 39 percent for Texas A&M and 33 percent for Rice.

That figure may come as a pleasant surprise to the UH athletic department, which is trying to boost attendance at Robertson Stadium. Murray, however, said fans are looking for something more from the Cougars, who were 0-11 in football last season.

"They've gotta win some games," he said, laughing.

Here are other findings from the Chronicle poll, broken down by sex, ethnicity and age:

Sex: Of the 508 respondents, 48.1 percent said they had high to very high interest in spectator sports -- 58.2 percent for men, 37.2 percent for women.

Football (at 60.8 percent) and basketball (49.4 percent) drew the most positive responses from men. For women, basketball topped the list of all sports at 38.9 percent, followed by football at 35.1 percent.

Race/ethnicity: Among all respondents, 38.9 percent had high or very high interest in spectator sports. African-Americans were the most enthusiastic fans, with 60 percent expressing high or very high interest and 28.9 percent describing themselves as moderate fans.

Among Anglo respondents, 46.4 percent fall into the first two categories, with 32.5 percent as moderate fans. Among Hispanics, 43.7 percent describe their interest in spectator sports as high to very high; 33.6 percent express moderate interest. For those of Asian or Pacific Island descent, the numbers are 38.9 percent in the high to very high range and 27.8 percent in the moderate category.

Soccer is the most popular sport among Hispanic respondents, with 49.5 percent expressing high to very high interest and 20.2 percent describing themselves as moderate fans. That range of interest was the highest for any ethnic group in any sport outside the big three of baseball, football and basketball.

Age: The very young and the very old express the strongest interest in spectator sports. Of poll respondents under age 25, 55.6 percent described their level of interest as high or very high. That goes to 51.4 percent for the 25-34 age group, into the 44 percent range for 35-44 and 45-54, to 21 percent for 55-64 and to 52 percent for those age 65 or older.

 

Truly spoken.

However, a true fan of the Astros will not abandon them just because they've never won anything. Hell, the Rockets have done exactly crap the last couple of years and most of us still love them just as much as ever. The Rockets can be 0-82 and most of true fans will love them just as much.

Failures and dissapointments make a championship even more satisfying.