report Methodology

During January 2011/early February 2011 a total of 38,742 online interviews were carried out with a nationwide sample of individuals and households from the U.S. Online Panel operated by Synovate. A total of 15,086 individual and 23,656 household surveys were completed. The total panel has over 1 million members and is maintained to be representative of the U.S. population. Over sampling of ethnic groups took place to boost response from typically under responding groups.

A weighting technique was used to balance the data to reflect the total U.S. population aged 6 and above. The following variables were used: gender, age, income, household size, region, and population density. The total population figure used was 283,743,000 people aged 6 and above.

The 2011 participation survey sample size of 38,742 completed interviews provides a high degree of statistical accuracy. All surveys are subject to some level of standard error—that is, the degree to which the results might differ from those obtained by a complete census of every person in the U.S. A sport with a participation rate of 5% has a confidence interval of plus or minus 0.21 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. This translates to plus or minus 4% of participants.