Sports and DeMatha, DeMatha and sports. Based on its athletic history and prowess, DeMatha Catholic High School is reasonably perceived as a sports school.
Because of the many high-quality sports teams the school produces, DeMatha draws in a massive sports audience from its students. Throughout the school, many faith-filled gentlemen watch multiple sports and have strong opinions on why they prefer one sport over another.
As I sat back marveling at DeMatha students’ love for sports, I began to ponder which sport DeMatha believes reigns king among the rest. Because of this, The DeMatha Stagline conducted a poll asking 100 DeMatha students what they think is the best sport to watch.
In the poll, 13 different sports were selected by a DeMatha student as their favorite to watch. Of these sports, football placed first with 39 votes, basketball placed second with 29 votes, and baseball placed third with eight votes. Soccer then placed fourth with seven votes, Hockey and UFC tied for fifth with 3 votes, F1 and track tied for sixth with two votes, and lacrosse, NASCAR, boxing, snowboarding, and cricket all tied for seventh with one vote.
The results of the poll were both surprising and unsurprising to some of the people who participated in it. Senior and basketball voter Jordan Warigon stated that he wasn’t surprised with “football and basketball being one and two,” but was surprised with “hockey and soccer receiving a low amount of votes.”
Warigon wasn’t surprised by football and basketball due to their popularity, as he stated that they are “the two most popular sports, [both at] DeMatha and [in] America.” Football and basketball are the most popular sports at DeMatha. Due to their storied history of talent and winning, DeMatha football and basketball attract the most fans per game. This sentiment is also true for football and basketball in all of America. According to a poll regarding the most popular sports leagues to watch in America (reviews.org 2024), the NFL ranked first with 65 percent of sports fans watching and the NBA ranked second with 51 percent of sports fans watching.
Warigon’s shock at the low representation of hockey and soccer came due to his misinterpretation of their popularity. He believed they should’ve gotten more votes because he “knows a lot of people at this school who like soccer and hockey.” The abundance of soccer love at DeMatha was prevalent during last year’s World Cup. During any free time throughout the day, many kids were either watching the World Cup or playing a soccer game dedicated to the World Cup.
DeMatha’s love for hockey is shown through watching Washington Capitals games. Warigon stated that with the Capitals being local, “a lot of people watch [their] games.” Despite people’s interest in those sports, it seems as though they are more interested in others.
Junior and baseball voter Gaberial Chapman also chimed in with his opinion on the poll. He stated that he also wasn’t surprised with “football being number 1,” however was surprised that “F1 was on the poll.” Chapman echoed the same sentiment as Warigon about football; ultimately stating that its popularity at DeMatha and in America as a whole granted them the one spot. His surprise for F1 garnering any votes stemmed from his claim that “F1 isn’t popular in America.”
Relative to other sports leagues, Chapman is right that F1 isn’t particularly popular in America. In the same poll regarding the most watched sports leagues in America, F1 tied for seventh place with 17 percent of American sports fans watching the league. However, the popularity of F1 is rapidly growing in the US. In 2021, F1 reported that the U.S. was one of its biggest global markets with over 36 million people watching at least one race. In 2022, F1’s average viewership per race reached a record 1.21 million viewers and had the biggest F1 event (viewership-wise) with 2.558 million live viewers. The excitement of F1 has been surging recently in America, and it seems that some DeMatha scholars have firmly jumped on the bandwagon.
All in all, what was gathered from this poll is that DeMatha loves a multitude of sports; however, their ultimate pride and joy is on the gridiron. This may be different at other schools, but at DeMatha, football reigns supreme.
