A member of the Saints staff holds up a helmet during the NFL's Super Bowl XLIV football game against the Indianapolis Colts in Miami
A member of the New Orleans Saints staff holds up a helmet during the NFL's Super Bowl XLIV football game against the Indianapolis Colts in Miami, Florida, February 7, 2010. REUTERS

Results of a Harris Interactive poll that show the NFL continues to rise in popularity while Major League Baseball continues to decline were made public today.

35% of the respondents to the poll replied that pro football was their favorite sport, 17% chose baseball, 12% chose college football, 7% chose auto-racing, and 6% chose men's pro basketball.

Men's golf saw a dip, with only 2% of respondents picking the sport. Men's soccer was picked by 4%, however surprisingly that is only a 1% increase in popularity among U.S. fans from a similar poll conducted in 1985.

Perhaps most surprisingly though was that 0% of the respondents listed women's pro basketball, college basketball, soccer, or golf as their favorite sport--a statistic that cannot be seen as good news by media entities like ESPN which recently launched ESPNw online with the intention of launching an women's sports network to accompany the cable giant's stable of sports properties.

The complete poll results can be viewed at Sports Business Journal Daily.

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