The 2024 Summer Olympics begin on July 26 in France, and about half (52%) of U.S. adults say they will follow the Summer Olympics very or somewhat closely, 30% not very closely, and 18% not at all.
These findings are part of an SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus poll conducted June 21 – 24, 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 1,005 adults aged 18 and older.
Among those who anticipate following the Summer Olympics at all, about half say they plan to watch them live on television or on a streaming service (51%), 33% watch just the highlights, and 16% read about them online or in the news.
Nine in ten of those who anticipate following the Olympics very closely say they plan to watch them live. Adults aged 50 or over (57%) and 30-49 (50%) are most likely to watch the Olympics live, while those aged 18-29 are more likely to watch highlights (46%).
About seven in ten U.S. adults say that during international sporting events like the Olympics, they root for American athletes and teams always (48%) or most of the time (24%).
Adults aged 50+ (81%) and 30-49 (70%) are more likely than younger adults (53% of those aged 18-29) to say they root for American athletes always or most of the time.
About four in ten U.S. adults (43%) believe it is extremely or very important for people living in the U.S. to root for American athletes at international sporting events like the Olympics.
Methodology
These findings are part of an SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus poll conducted June 21 – 24, 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 1,005 adults aged 18 and older. The margin of error for total respondents is +/- 3.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The design effect is 1.3. View the questions used for this analysis, along with the responses >>. The questionnaire was developed and the data analyzed by SSRS contributor, John M. Benson, with assistance from the SSRS team.
John M. Benson is a public opinion researcher, academic writer, and editor with over thirty years’ experience examining public attitudes about health policy and other domestic policy issues. He has directed numerous national and international polling projects leading to more than 100 publications in New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, JAMA, Public Opinion Quarterly, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Public Health Reports, Milbank Quarterly, Social Science Research, and other domestic policy and polling journals. He is also co-author of American Public Opinion and Health Care (CQ Press).
The SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus is a national, twice-per-month, probability-based survey. All SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus data are weighted to represent the target population of U.S. adults ages 18 or older.
The SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus is conducted on the SSRS Opinion Panel. SSRS Opinion Panel members are recruited randomly based on a nationally representative ABS (Address Based Sample) design (including Hawaii and Alaska). ABS respondents are randomly sampled by Marketing Systems Group (MSG) through the U.S. Postal Service’s Computerized Delivery Sequence File (CDS), a regularly updated listing of all known addresses in the U.S. For the SSRS Opinion Panel, known business addresses are excluded from the sample frame.
The SSRS Opinion Panel is a multi-mode panel (web and phone). Most panelists take self-administered web surveys; however, the option to take surveys conducted by a live telephone interviewer is available to those who do not use the internet as well as those who use the internet but are reluctant to take surveys online. All sample drawn for this study were SSRS Opinion Panelists who are U.S. adults ages 18 or older. Sample was selected to ensure representation by age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, Census region, and party identification. Possible sources of non-sampling error include non-response bias, as well as question wording and ordering effects.
About SSRS
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