The Bernstein Brief: Q Scores Reveal Sports Truths
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) The Crain's Chicago Business article was about Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and how the latest national data from Q Scores show that he's both well known and widely disliked.
That comes as no real surprise, for several reasons. The NFL is enormous, Cutler has been the subject of broadly a negative national narrative since his departure from Denver and he has been a perfect combination of unsuccessful, highly paid and un-photogenic. All this says is that to be aware of him is to not like him.
But some other takeaways become clear deeper in the firm's recent survey of 1,800 U.S. adults, as Crain's notes the next-best-known athletes in Chicago.
Thirty-five percent of people have heard of Cutler. After that, the Bulls' Derrick Rose checks in with a 27 percent recognition rate. Then it's three Cubs -- Anthony Rizzo and Jon Lester at 19 percent and Kris Bryant at 17 percent. Next down the list is the Blackhawks' Patrick Kane at 15 percent, and this was before he became the target of a rape investigation.
NBA marketing is global in reach, and Rose has been a merchandise brand. That position makes sense.
It speaks to the size and fervor of Cubs fandom nationally that they are this well represented. The lull of their remodeling dormancy is now over, clearly. But Bryant above Kane is remarkable when you really consider it, and it shows how far hockey has to go to achieve the saturation of the other major sports.
Kane isn't just some guy. Entering his eighth NHL season, he's a four-time All-Star, two-time U.S. Olympian, three-time Stanley Cup champion and the face of the marquee American franchise, the top television attraction. He was the league's video-game cover boy before the recent incident.
And he's lesser known in this country than a baseball rookie who just started playing in April.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. Follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.
