Is Baseball Still King Among Latinos? What About Football?

Relatives came up from Mexico this past Christmas and as always they brought goodies for everyone. It amazes me how they arrive with relatively few pieces of luggage for a family of four and then produce gifts for everyone in sight – like one of those bottomless clown suitcases. This year they gave me a soccer jersey from Club San Luis, their hometown Mexican Soccer League team. It’s a big deal and I was happily grateful. That night we watched the NBA on TV and later that weekend we watched the Dallas Cowboys lose, again. And a common thread throughout the holiday was conversation about the English Premier League.

The oldest of their kids plays basketball at her high school; she’s a huge San Antonio Spurs fan and wears the appropriate gear proudly. It’s a universal thing many of us do – wear our team colors like a tattoo but without the commitment. It’s huge business.

The profits on sports gear and the general business of professional sports are so big that someone, somewhere was going to measure who likes which sport and which is the favored team. They also broke it down by ethnicity.

Here’s what the Scarborough Research Multimarket Study found, according to Hispanicmarketinfo.com:

• 14% of Latinos said they were “very” interested in Major League Baseball
• 43% of Latinos said they were “very” interested in Major League Soccer
• 18% “very” interested in the National Basketball Association
• 11% in the National Football League
• 9% in the National Hockey League.

Baseball is the professional sport with the most Latino athletes, although the NBA is gaining in that respect and I found myself rooting for the Jets because of they have a Latino QB.  Where do you fall on this list?