As hard as it is to believe at times, there are people who don’t watch sports. The percentages as to how many people that is though might come as a surprise.

Leave it to an ESPN site to provide these statistics. The fine people at FiveThirtyEight and ESPN research have crunched the numbers and found that 7 percent of all men between the third quarter of 2013 through the third quarter of this year didn’t care to watch sports.

That breaks down to 1 in every 14 men. They don’t watch casually, don’t enter any fantasy leagues, don’t provide a bracket to NCAA Tournament office pools, don’t visit sports sites, they just don’t pay attention to sports at all. In fact, that number is the same for women, 7 percent of all females during that same time period didn’t watch sports either.

There’s even an age breakdown for the non-sports watchers. There are more non-sports watchers among the 18-34 demographic, in fact almost 15% among males, 5% among 35-54 and even less over age 55.

So, a large majority of men and women are at least casual sports watchers, but there is a block of men who won’t get up early to watch Australian Open tennis, the English Premier League, Olympics or sit down to watch the NFL on a Sunday afternoon. While they are a silent minority, they seem to be a proud minority.

Maybe you know a person like this or perhaps you know of someone who doesn’t watch sports. Just know that he or she makes up 7% of the population who won’t know what you’re referencing if you discuss this weekend’s sports action.

[FiveThirtyEight]

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About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.