A little less than four in ten French people (37%) say they are waiting “with a lot” or “a little impatience” for the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11), according to a Viavoice survey unveiled Monday for the Tours Journalism Conference .
Conversely, 57% of respondents are waiting with “little” or “no impatience” for the high mass of sport, organized in Paris for the first time in a century.
Interest is still a little less pronounced for the Paralympic Games, which arouse the impatience of only 30% of respondents, surveyed online from February 29 to March 4.
Even among respondents who “regularly learn about sport and its news”, enthusiasm remains rather measured, with 55% impatient for the Olympic Games, and 45% for the Paralympic Games.
They are part of a broader investigation into the relationship between public opinion and sports journalism, the central theme of the Conference organized in Tours from Monday to Saturday, an Olympic year.
According to this study, less than half of those surveyed (45%) regularly find out about sport and its news and 35% “rarely”, while 20% “never” follow sport. 61% of the men questioned say they regularly learn about sport, compared to 30% of women.
Unsurprisingly, the most followed sport is football, cited by 43% of the 353 respondents following a particular sport almost daily, far ahead of rugby (15%) and tennis (7%).
Another lesson: 76% of respondents believe that sports journalists should be neutral and not show their preference. But the situation changes when French teams or athletes are in the running, with 45% of respondents expecting journalists and commentators to “be supporters” and “show their preference”.
Survey carried out among a sample of 1,001 people, representative of the population aged 18 and over residing in mainland France, using the quota method.
