Michael Mulvihill is the Executive Vice President of Fox Sports and the head of strategy and analytics. He gets his data from Nielsen Media Research and analyzes those ratings. A day after the conclusion of Super Bowl 2020, Mulvihill tweeted out two statistics in comparison to each other that may come off as an indictment to Americans. The tweet says that 148.5 million Americans watched all or part of Super Bowl LIV while only 138.8 million Americans voted in the 2016 Presidential election.
148.5 million Americans watched all or part of Super Bowl LIV.
138.8 million Americans voted in the 2016 Presidential election.
— Michael Mulvihill (@mulvihill79) February 3, 2020
You can read this tweet in different ways. Some may read this as how sports is the great unifier in this country. When you are cheering for your favorite team, you don’t look at their race, gender, or political party. You just look at them as a fan just like you and are able to bond on that fact alone. Others may read this as a disappointment, showing that Americans truly value a game over the importance of picking out the next President whose decisions impact more lives than a sporting event.
Some people on twitter found Mulvihill’s stat to be faulty and misleading because of the several factors that go into voting as opposed to watching the Super Bowl like age, citizenship, and criminal history.
You don't have to be 18 to watch the Super Bowl. You also don't get kicked off TV for having ever committed a crime or randomly disappearing from voter rolls.
— Arielle Aronson (@aharonson28) February 3, 2020
And there’s quite a lot of immigrants who enjoy the game.
— Shelbyville Manhattan (@tweefc) February 4, 2020
Wherever you stand, the stat by Mulvihill is captivating and polarizing, just like America.