Who supports the joint World Cup bid and why?

In an effort to bolster their moneymaking efforts better understand their potential audience’s desires, the World Cup United Bid Committee for Canada, Mexico, and the United States commissioned a survey to determine attitudes in each country towards the joint WC bid. Some of the results you might expect, like overall higher awareness in Mexico of soccer and soccer-related news around the WC. Several of the survey categories and their results show the differences between the bid countries’ soccer cultures. We’ve cherry picked some of the more interesting results below.

• 83% of Mexicans, 76% of Canadians, and 74% of Americans surveyed support the united bid.
• World Cup viewership in Mexico (83%) is nearly twice as high compared to the U.S. (45%) and Canada (47%).
• 53% of Americans and 50% of Canadians said they have never watched a World Cup match, while only 15% of Mexican adults said the same.
• 47% of Americans and 43% of Canadians say they have no interest in soccer, compared to 13% for Mexicans.
• 56% of Mexicans surveyed said they were aware of the joint bid, while 32% of Canadians and 26% of Americans had heard about the bid.
• Conversely 12% of Mexicans versus 6% of Americans and 6% of Canadians oppose co-hosting the WC.
• Of those in favor, 61% said their top reason for supporting the joint bid was “helping out their country economically.”
• Americans (48%) and Canadians (57%) were much more likely to cite “potential to help grow the game of soccer in their nation” as a reason to support the bid than Mexicans (27%).
• Other reasons cited in support of the bid were boosting the image of their country around the world, inspiring children to be more active, and not needing new stadiums.
• Americans (33%) are much less concerned about cost as a reason to oppose the WC bid compared to Mexicans (67%) and Canadians (63%).
• Other factors cited in opposition to the bid were potential security risks, not being a soccer fan, fear of traffic congestion and “other headaches,” and “the influx of foreign visitors.”

There’s some caveats here, of course. Survey samples aren’t perfect, and at least in the US, difficulty reaching underrepresented populations like Hispanics and Latinos can skew results.

You can catch the methodology and all the results in this post from Ipsos Public Affairs, the company that conducted the survey.

What do you think? Is this survey representative of your experience with attitudes towards soccer in the respective bid countries?