For Americans who care about baseball, there is strong support the decision to move Major League Baseball’s 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver in the latest Economist/YouGov poll. The decision was made in response to Georgia’s adoption of new voting laws, which many believe will make it more difficult to vote, especially for minorities.
Americans are slightly more likely to approve (48%) than disapprove (41%) of the All-Star game being moved to Denver. Americans who are interested in Major League Baseball approve by 52% to 37%. Republicans object to the game being moved (13% approve, 77% disapprove); Democrats support it (82% vs 10%). Black Americans support it by 62% to 17%, while white Americans are split (43% vs 48%). Those who live in the South are evenly divided (43% vs 42%).
America’s national pastime is not adored by all. One in 10 Americans (10%) say Major League Baseball is one of their top interests. Nearly half the public (48%) says they aren’t the least bit interested in professional baseball. About two in five are somewhat (17%) or a little bit (26%) interested.
Calls for an MLB boycott do not seem to be changing baseball fans’ viewing behavior
In response to the MLB moving the All-Star game from Atlanta, some politicians — including former President Trump — have called for a full boycott of Major League Baseball.
However, most who care about Major League Baseball (55%) say the calls for a boycott will not impact their viewing baseball or attending games.
For Republicans, two in five (42%) claim that the calls for a boycott will not change how many games they watch or attend. Twice as many will cut back (20%) or eliminate watching baseball (26%) as say they will watch more (12%). It remains to see how many will follow through on those changes in behavior.
Black Americans and Hispanic Americans are closely divided on whether they will watch more or less baseball. So are those who call Major League Baseball one of their top interests, suggesting there may be less impact of the boycott calls than those who called for a boycott hoped.
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See the toplines and crosstabs from this Economist/YouGov poll
Methodology: The Economist survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,500 US Adult Citizens interviewed online between April 10 - 13, 2021. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the US Bureau of the Census, as well as 2016 Presidential vote, registration status, geographic region, and news interest. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all US citizens. The margin of error is approximately 2.8% for the overall sample
Image: Getty
