The ESPN (Chilton) Sports Poll was created by the
Chilton Company
Chilton Company (AKA Chilton Printing Co., Chilton Publishing Co., Chilton Book Co. and Chilton Research Services) is a former publishing company, most famous for its trade magazines, and automotive manuals. It also provided conference and market ...
in 1993 and launched on January 4, 1994. The Sports Poll was the first ongoing research service to measure
sports fan interests, activities and preferences in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. In 1997, the influence of the Sports Poll was recognized by ''
Sporting News'': "the
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
Chilton poll, in less than three years has become the single most utilized sports intelligence service in the U.S., a staple now of sports organizations, media and sponsoring companies. His research provides timely data on sports fan interests and behaviors year round, which is an invaluable marketing tool."
Included in topics covered by the Sports Poll: Favorite sport; fan and avid fan base by sport for 20+ different sports; favorite athletes by sport; favorite team by sport; amount and way of following sports; awareness of sponsorships; purchase of sports related products and services.
The ESPN Sports Poll has collected 1,000 - 2,000 interviews a month continuously since January 1994. The over 200,000 interviews and over 2,000 different questions on the Poll have led to reports that have been published in hundreds of newspapers and magazines.
Sports marketing
Sports marketing as a concept has established itself as a branch of marketing over the past few decades, however, a generally accepted definition does not exist.
Academicians Kaser and Oelkers (2005, p. 9) define sports marketing as 'using spor ...
textbooks routinely include the Sports Poll and data. Seventy-five percent of the course grade for a university class was based on analysis of Sports Poll data.
WVU
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:ESPN Sports Poll
Sports business
Market research
ESPN