WWE Claims To Have 'Highest Percentage Of Non-White Fans Of Any Major Sport'
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed by, of all people, former Republican Party political operative Kurt Bardella. Titled "What WWE and pro wrestling could teach struggling media companies," it's largely a generic, light pro-WWE piece about where WWE stands in the modern media landscape, but there's something in there that stands out: That, "a WWE spokesperson told me that its franchise has the highest percentage of non-white fans of any major sport."
That was a new claim and the fact that a WWE spokesperson was saying it made it particularly noteworthy. Though it's known via Nielsen demographic data reported last year by Wrestlenomics that WWE does particularly well with Black and Hispanic viewers, particularly having a much higher percentage of Black viewers than the average TV show, this was a much bigger claim than that, especially in an era where the NBA is so heavily associated with the size of its Black fan base. With Bardella not specifying where the data came from, Wrestling Inc. reached out to a WWE spokesperson, who quickly responded with some specifics.
Who's Watching WWE?
According to WWE, the data they pointed Bardella to comes from the 2022 SSRS/Luker Sports Trend Poll. With the caveat that FiveThirtyEight's pollster rating for SSRS is a C grade (60 percent accurate) for their election polls relative to how the elections in question turn out, here's how various sports properties ranked. The figure cited is the percentage of the fans polled that identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color):
- WWE – 49%
- UFC – 47%
- NBA – 47%
- NFL – 37%
- MLB – 35%
- NASCAR – 35%
- NHL – 33%
By comparison, in the Nielsen data from a year ago reported by Wrestlenomics last March, the percentage of WWE television viewers reported as Black, Hispanic, or "other race" was roughly 44-to-45 percent depending on the show. Though the information is nine years old, Nielsen data reported by The Atlantic in February 2014 put the NBA's viewership at 45 percent Black and 12 percent Hispanic. Only Major League Soccer came closer as far as the total percentage of non-white viewers with 34 percent Hispanic joined by eight percent Black.