Football fans divided on use of instant replay, CBS News poll finds
By Anthony Salvanto, Jennifer De Pinto Fred Backus and Kabir Khanna
A controversial no-call of pass interference in the NFC Championship had a lot of football fans talking about the use of instant replay. In general, 45 percent of football fans say instant replay should be used more often than it is now, but 41 percent think it's being used the right amount already.
Fifty percent of Americans say the NFL should require players to stand if they are on the field during the anthem, while 50 percent say the league should allow players to either stand or kneel during the anthem as they choose.
Overall, most Americans feel professional athletes can use their platforms to talk politics or raise issues if they wish, but they divide on where they feel athletes ought to do so. Thirty-one percent say athletes can do so wherever they like; 46 percent say athletes should do so, but not during sporting events.
Looking back on the controversy surrounding NFL players protesting by kneeling during the national anthem, most Americans think President Trump (63 percent) and the league and team owners (66 percent) handled the matter inappropriately. The public is split on how the players handled it: 49 percent say they acted appropriately, while 51 percent say inappropriately.
On the Super Bowl LIII match-up, more football fans want to see the Los Angeles Rams win (47 percent) than the New England Patriots (27 percent). For a quarter of fans, it doesn't matter. The Rams are also the choice among Americans overall.
The CBS News survey is conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,596 U.S. residents interviewed online between January 28-31, 2019. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, as well as 2016 Presidential vote and registration status. Respondents were selected from YouGov's opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S residents. The margin of error is 2.6%.
