Who’s Watching the Super Bowl?

Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of all Americans report they’ll be tuning in to watch Super Bowl XLVIII. Men are more likely than women to watch (79 percent v. 66 percent), while roughly similar numbers of black Americans (76 percent), white Americans (72 percent), and Hispanic Americans (68 percent) report planning to tune in. Interestingly, Republicans (81 percent) are more likely than both Democrats (72 percent) and independents (69 percent) to say they’re likely to watch the Seattle Seahawks take on the Denver Broncos.

On an any given Sunday, Americans report being roughly equally likely to be in church (25 percent) as to be watching football (21 percent); 21 percent of Americans say they do both, while one-third (33 percent) neither attend church nor watch football most Sundays. Minority Protestants and white evangelical Protestants are the groups most likely to say they’re more likely to be in church on Sunday than watching football (49 percent and 46 percent, respectively), while fewer Catholics (25 percent), white mainline Protestants (15 percent) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (4 percent) say the same. White evangelical Protestants may well have the busiest Sundays, with nearly one-third (31 percent) reporting they’ll be both watching football as well as attending church, followed by Catholics (29 percent), minority Protestants (25 percent), white mainline Protestants (20 percent) and the religiously unaffiliated (6 percent). Religiously unaffiliated Americans are the group least likely to report doing either, with 58 percent reporting they neither watch football nor attend church. Nearly 4-in-10 (38 percent) white mainline Protestants say the same, followed by Catholics (22 percent), minority Protestants (18 percent), and white evangelical Protestants (14 percent).