62 percent said legalized sports betting influences people’s reaction to officiating of NFL games; Democrats and Republicans Can agree on something: the quality of officiating.

South Orange NJ, October 29, 2019 — Despite seeing nearly half of all disputed calls reversed by video replay, Americans perceive the officiating of Major League Baseball better than any other major sport.

And what’s truly remarkable in this day and age of polarization, is that Democrats and Republicans are in agreement on whether officiating is good or terrible on a sport-by-sport basis.

“At last, something they can agree on,” noted Rick Gentile, director of the Seton Hall Sports Poll, which is sponsored by the Sharkey Institute within the Stillman School of Business. “The differences were negligible in almost every case.”

These are the findings of a Seton Hall Sports Poll, conducted last week among 703 adult Americans across the country on both landlines and cellphones. The Poll has a margin of error of +/-3.8 percent. (The margin of error for the smaller sample of Democrats and Republicans, 176 of each, is +/- 7.5 percent.)

Major League Baseball scored a 64 percent approval rating for umpiring, with only 3 percent saying it was terrible. And here we find 65 percent of Democrats saying it is good, and 67 percent of Republicans.

For the NFL, 48 percent rated the officiating as good (57 percent Democrats; 54 percent Republicans), but 27 percent called it terrible. A separate question, the suggestion of using replay on every call, found the public equally divided – 41 percent approving, and 42 percent disapproving, with 17 percent having no opinion. (While the parties can agree on officiating, they don’t agree on how to improve it. On this there was division by party, with 51 percent of Democrats approving of replay on every play, but only 27 percent of Republicans approving.)

The NBA had a 49 percent rating of “good” for its officiating; the NHL 44 percent; college basketball 48 percent, and college football 53 percent, all very close along party lines (see breakdown by party at the end of this release).

Percent saying that each sport has “good officiating.”

SPORT DEM REP Major League Baseball 65 67 National Football League 57 54 National Basketball Assoc. 55 57 National Hockey League 43 45 College Basketball 55 60 College Football 65 67

Asked if legalized sports betting influences people’s reaction to officiating of NFL games, 62 percent said yes, 20 percent no and 18 percent don’t know – again, fairly equal along party lines.

About the poll:

This poll was conducted by telephone October 21-23 among adults in the United States. The Seton Hall Sports Poll is conducted by the Sharkey Institute within the Stillman School of Business. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard landline and cell phones. The error for subgroups may be higher. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls. The Seton Hall Sports Poll has been conducted regularly since 2006.Recently chosen for inclusion in iPoll by Cornell’s Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, its findings have been published everywhere from USA Today, ESPN, The New York Times, Washington Post, AP, and Reuters to Fox News and most points in between.

Media: Media: Marty Appel, AppelPR@gmail.com;

Michael Ricciardelli, Associate Director of Media Relations, Seton Hall

michael.ricciardelli@shu.edu, 908-447-3034

The results:

The NFL has been criticized recently for a series of questionable calls by officials. One suggestion is to have a referee overseeing every call made or not made on video and confirming or overruling the call on the field. Do you approve or disapprove?

Dem Rep Ind Other

1 – Approve 41 51 27 43

2 – Disapprove 42 40 56 39

3 – Don’t know/No opinion 17 9 17 18

I’m going to read you a few sports. Tell me if you think the officiating is good or terrible:

Major League Baseball

1 – Good 64 65 67 63

2 – Terrible 3 2 7 3

3 – Don’t know/No opinion 33 33 27 33

National Football League

1 – Good 48 57 54 41

2 – Terrible 27 19 29 31

3 – Don’t know/No opinion 25 24 17 28

National Basketball Association

1 – Good 49 55 57 42

2 – Terrible 13 19 29 17

3 – Don’t know/No opinion 38 24 17 41

National Hockey League

1 – Good 44 43 45 45

2 – Terrible 6 6 6 5

3 – Don’t know/No opinion 51 52 49 50

College Basketball

1 – Good 48 55 60 38

2 – Terrible 9 8 3 13

3 – Don’t know/No opinion 44 37 37 49

College Football

1 – Good 53 65 67 41

2 – Terrible 12 8 13 14

3 – Don’t know/No opinion 34 26 20 45

Is sports betting, which has been legalized in many states, influencing people’s reaction to officiating of NFL games?

1 – Yes 62 64 62 60

2 – No 20 19 26 18

3 – Don’t know 18 18 13 22

Would you describe yourself as a Democrat, Republican, Independent or something else?

1 – Democrat 25

2 – Republican 25

3 – Independent 30

4 – Other 15

5 – Don’t know/No Opinion 4

ABOUT SETON HALL UNIVERSITY

One of the country’s leading Catholic universities, Seton Hall has been showing the world what great minds can do since 1856. Home to nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students and offering more than 90 rigorous academic programs, Seton Hall’s academic excellence has been singled out for distinction by The Princeton Review, U.S. News & World Report and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Seton Hall embraces students of all religions and prepares them to be exemplary servant leaders and global citizens. In recent years, the University has achieved extraordinary success. Since 2009, it has seen record-breaking undergraduate enrollment growth and an impressive 110-point increase in the average SAT scores of incoming freshmen. In the past decade, Seton Hall students and alumni have received more than 30 Fulbright Scholarships as well as other prestigious academic honors, including Boren Awards, Pickering Fellowships, Udall Scholarships and a Rhodes Scholarship. The University is also proud to be the third most diverse national Catholic university in the nation.

During the past five years, the University has invested more than $165 million in new campus buildings and renovations. And in 2015, Seton Hall launched a School of Medicine as well as a College of Communication and the Arts. The University’s beautiful main campus in suburban South Orange, N.J. is only 14 miles from New York City — offering students a wealth of employment, internship, cultural and entertainment opportunities. Seton Hall’s nationally recognized School of Law is located prominently in downtown Newark. The University’s Interprofessional Health Sciences (IHS) campus in Clifton and Nutley, N.J. opened in the summer of 2018. The IHS campus houses the University’s College of Nursing, School of Health and Medical Sciences and the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University.

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