Stay Ahead of the Game with Sports Poll Highlights
By Edison Research
This post is from Edison’s Weekly Insights email. Subscribe here.
Since Edison Research joined SSRS in the Fall of 2025, we have highlighted a number of findings from Sports Poll, another amazing product from SSRS.
We are excited to announce that starting tomorrow Sports Poll will have its own separate newsletter called Sports Poll Highlights. Each edition will deliver sharp analysis and key takeaways from over 30 years of Sports Poll, the world’s longest-running tracking study on sports. Subscribers to Weekly Insights have early access to our first issue and to register for Sports Poll Highlights.
The inaugural issue breaks down one of the longest-running questions on Sports Poll: “Who is your favorite professional athlete?”.
In Q1 2026, Lionel Messi ranks slightly ahead of LeBron James as favorite athlete. One of the two has ranked #1 each quarter since the end of 2023. Sports Poll has measured the favorite athlete of Americans 12+ continuously since its launch in 1995. Over 32 years, only eight athletes have ranked #1 for at least one quarter. Messi and James continue to rank 1-2 in Q1 2026, but favorites have clearly grown more fragmented over time. At 3%, Messi’s position in the top spot is far cry from Michael Jordan’s peak, when 19% named him as their favorite during the Bulls’ last championship in 1998.
Sign up at this link to receive Sports Poll Highlights each week. Upcoming topics include prediction markets, the Savannah Bananas, the impact of the World Cup, and NBA star power. Subscribe to this weekly newsletter if you love data and want a smarter way to follow the action. For more information on Sports Poll, please visit our website.
