Golf among the sports some fans love to hate

Last Updated: Sept. 30, 2003

If you're a fan of professional golf and are reading the results of a recent poll listing the most-hated spectator sports in the United States , look on the bright side.

People don't hate your sport as much as they do dogfighting.

From July 16-20, a telephone poll of 1,020 people 18 years and older was conducted by International Communications Research of Media, Pa., for the Sports Marketing Group in Atlanta .

Respondents were read a list of sports and asked how they felt about each one, with categories including "love, like a lot, like a little, no opinion, dislike at little, dislike a lot, or hate." The most-hated-sports list was compiled based on respondents who said they disliked or hated a sport.

The top 10 most-hated sports: 1, dogfighting (81.4%); 2, pro wrestling (55.7%); 3, bullfighting (46.2%); 4, pro boxing (31.3%); 5, PGA Tour (30.4%); 6, PGA seniors (29.9%); 7, LPGA Tour (29.2%); 8, NASCAR (27.9%); 9, Major League Soccer (27.6%); 10, ATP men's tennis (26.5%).

What possessed the pollsters to include dogfighting and bullfighting as options is puzzling. If you're going to go there, what about cockfighting?

And get this. About 19% of the respondents don't dislike dogfighting. Who are those people?

The top four on the list aren't surprising. But golf bunched in the next three is surprising. Further, note that PGA Tour golf is more objectionable to the respondents than the PGA seniors and LPGA tours.

Those three golf tours are more hated than the Arena Football League (24.0%), Indy Racing League (23.7%), women's college basketball (22.2%) and women's pro basketball (20.1%).

Packers-Bears on top

The Green Bay Packers' victory over the Chicago Bears on Monday night delivered the biggest local TV rating for any of the four Packers games this season.

However, it was 5% off the average for the two Monday night games the Packers played in last season, including one against the Bears.

The game at renovated Soldier Field had a rating of 44.2 on WISN-TV (Channel 12). An estimated 385,203 households tuned in for all or portions of the game. An estimated 60% of the TVs in use at the time were tuned to the game.

The Packers' game vs. Chicago on Oct. 7, 2002 , in Champaign , Ill. , had a rating of 46.5 and Miami at Green Bay on Nov. 4 had a 46.3.

Channel 12's one-hour pregame show had a 14.1 rating, or 122,880 households. The 90-minute pregame show on ESPN, "Monday Night Countdown," had a preliminary rating of 2.5 in the Milwaukee area, or 21,787 households.

In Chicago , on WLS-TV, the game had a 31.0 rating with a 45 share.

Homers of the Braves

The Atlanta Braves have six players who hit 20 or more home runs.

Steve Vanderpool of Stats Inc. in Los Angeles reports that the last and only other time a National League team had that many 20-homer players was the 1965 Milwaukee Braves, who moved to Atlanta the next season.

The 2003 Atlanta Braves with 20 or homers are: Javy Lopez (43), Gary Sheffield (39), Andruw Jones (36), Chipper Jones (27), Vinny Castilla (22) and Marcus Giles (21).

The 1965 Atlanta Braves were: Hank Aaron (32), Eddie Mathews (32), Mack Jones (31), Joe Torre (27), Felipe Alou (23) and Gene Oliver (21).

Bird's now big Bird

Sue Bird went one-on-one against Gary Payton and Ray Allen, beating them both.

Bird, on the roster of the WNBA's Seattle Storm, is to replace Payton on the 30-foot high billboard at NikeTown in downtown Seattle .

Payton's picture had been there for three years.

Over the summer, visitors to the store were invited to vote for a replacement for Payton, who was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks last season, became a free agent at season's end and signed with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Bird was chosen over Seattle SuperSonics guard Allen, Lance Armstrong, Mia Hamm and Marion Jones, other U.S. athletes in the Nike stable.

Bucky, Bobby and Billy

To note the 25th anniversary of Bucky Dent's homer on Oct. 2, 1978, that helped send the New York Yankees past the Boston Red Sox in an extra regular-season game to break a tie in the American League East, ESPN's "SportsCenter" is featuring what it considers the top 25 home runs of all time.

The top five: 1, Bobby Thomson (playoff game, 1951); 2, Kirk Gibson (Game 1, 1988 World Series); 3, Bill Mazeroski (Game 7, World Series); 4, Hank Aaron (home run 715); and 5, Carlton Fisk (Game 6, 1975 World Series).

Dent's homer is ranked No. 8.

From the Oct. 1, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel