Prior to the start of the NFL playoffs, nearly half of Americans said the Kansas City Chiefs would win the AFC championship and 29% — twice as many as the Detroit Lions — said the Chiefs would win the Super Bowl, according to a new survey released today by the Siena College Research Institute (SCRI) and St. Bonaventure University’s Jandoli School of Communication.
Prior to the start of the NFL playoffs, nearly half of Americans said the Kansas City Chiefs would win the AFC championship and 29% — twice as many as the Detroit Lions — said the Chiefs would win the Super Bowl, according to a new survey released today by the Siena College Research Institute (SCRI) and St. Bonaventure University’s Jandoli School of Communication.
The Philadelphia Eagles finished behind the Lions in the survey but 8% of Americans and 19% of those from the Northeast did predict that the Eagles would win the Super Bowl.
Seventy-two percent of all Americans, 80% of men and 99% of “avid” sports fans plan to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday. (Avid fans watch sports, sports news, talk about sports, or play fantasy sports almost every single day.)
Over a third (35%) of all Americans consider the Super Bowl to be a national holiday and 46% support offering the Monday after the game each year as a paid day off of work.
While a small majority (52%) insist that the game itself is the most interesting part of the Super Bowl, 19% prefer the halftime show and 18% watch for the commercials.
“Fans overwhelmingly predicted the Chiefs would win the AFC as they garnered more than three times as many nods as the Bills,” said Don Levy, SCRI’s director. “In the NFC, the Eagles finished a close second to the Lions (30-21%), and nearly 10% of all respondents forecast the ultimate matchup, Eagles vs. Chiefs.”
Seventy-two percent of those who forecasted that matchup said the Chiefs would beat the Eagles.
Seventeen percent of Americans and 51% of avid fans said they will place bets on the Super Bowl, and an additional 20% said that they might. Of those who will or might gamble on the Super Bowl, 61% will bet among family and friends and 57% will bet using online sportsbooks such as DraftKings, Caesars, or FanDuel.
“Nearly four of every 10 Americans could very well wager a few dollars on the matchup between the Chiefs and Eagles,” said Aaron Chimbel, dean of St. Bonaventure University’s Jandoli School of Communication. “While men are more likely to gamble than women, of those who bet, women tend to bet more with friends and family while men bet somewhat more with online sportsbooks. Our next releases will drill down on issues in sport (Feb. 11) and the social phenomenon that is online sports betting (Feb. 18).”
Seventy percent of Americans consider themselves to be a football fan and nearly half say that football is their favorite sport. Of the 31% who say that a sport other than football is their favorite, basketball is named most often, followed by baseball.
In-depth details on the survey can be found here.
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The American Sports Fanship Survey was conducted January 6-11, 2025, among 3047 responses drawn from a proprietary online panel (Lucid) of United States Residents. Data was statistically adjusted by age, region, race/ethnicity, education, and gender to ensure representativeness. It has an overall margin of error of +/- 1.9 percentage points including the design effects resulting from weighting. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social, and cultural research primarily in NYS. SCRI, an independent, non-partisan research institute, subscribes to the American Association of Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices. For more information or comments, please call Dr. Don Levy at 518-783-2901. St. Bonaventure University’s Jandoli School of Communication offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in sports media, journalism, communication and related fields. For more information or comments, please contact Dean Aaron Chimbel at 716-375-2040.