South Orange, NJ, October 5, 2017 — A poll conducted by the Seton Hall Sports Poll has found that by an overall margin of 49% to 31, Americans believe that baseball stadiums should extend netting down the foul lines to protect fans from foul balls and wayward bats. The remaining 20% either did not know or had no opinion.
When broken down according to age, however, a different view appears: 18-29 year old respondents reached the opposite conclusion, opposing the extension of protective netting by a 39% to 33% margin.
In fact, the number in favor of protective netting along foul lines in baseball stadiums rose in correlation to age group.
Ages 18 – 29, 39% opposed installation of protective netting while 33% were in favor
Ages 30 – 49, 49% favored installation of protective netting while 36% opposed
Ages 45 – 59, 52% favored installation of protective netting while 30% opposed
Ages 60+, 56% favored installation of protective netting while 23% opposed
“Clearly the concerns about safety grow as our respondents get older. It’s rare that such a direct correlation occurs from age group to age group,” noted Rick Gentile, Director of the Seton Hall Sports Poll, which is sponsored by the Sharkey Institute as part of the University’s Stillman School of Business.
The New York Yankees recently announced that they would “significantly expand” the protective netting at Yankee Stadium after a toddler was seriously injured when struck in the face by a foul ball.
The poll of 845 adults (on both landline and cellphone) was conducted across the US on Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday last week. It has a margin of error of 3.4%.
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For more information, visit www.shu.edu.
About the poll:
This poll was conducted by telephone September 25-27 among 845 adults in the United States. The Seton Hall Sports Poll is conducted by the Sharkey Institute.
Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard landline and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. 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.
Media: Media: Marty Appel, AppelPR@gmail.com;
Michael Ricciardelli, Associate Director of Media Relations, Seton Hall
michael.ricciardelli@shu.edu, 908-447-3034