2026 Winter Olympics poll: Figure skating, snowboarding draw most fan interest - ESPN

Editor's note: These results are derived from a Seton Hall Sports Poll conducted Jan. 27-30 among 1,596 U.S. adults. The Poll, which is sponsored by The Sharkey Institute within Seton Hall University's Stillman School of Business, features a nationally representative sample from YouGov PLC., weighted on U.S. Census Bureau figures for age, gender, ethnicity, education, income and geography with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.0%.

Before the Winter Olympics kicked off in Milan, Italy, Seton Hall Sports conducted a sports poll from Jan. 27 through Jan. 30. The poll included responses from 1,596 U.S. adults with a margin of error of 3% in either direction. Every four years, the world tunes in to the Winter Olympics to watch Olympians compete in unique competitions, captivating courses and odds-defying spectacles.

But are «wow» factors of the Winter Olympics and GOAT athletes (like Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin) enough to engage the general population? What about die-hard NFL or NBA fans? In the age of social media, will people even turn on the television to watch the Olympic events or will they only catch snippets on TikTok and Instagram? Here's the data Seton Hall Sports collected around the topic.

From Feb. 4 to Feb. 22, the 2026 Milan Cortina Games will host 2,900 athletes in 15 venues throughout northern Italy. There will be 116 medal events across 16 disciplines. When it comes to actually watching these events live, viewers need to have an account for any NBC Universal streaming platforms including Peacock, NBC.com and the NBC app.

The majority of U.S. adults who participated in the Seton Hall Sports Poll did not have any account for NBC Universal streaming platforms. Forty-eight percent of avid sports fans