A world without sports or a world without smartphones? What would you choose? 34% of singles (and evidently sports fans), said they’d give up their smartphone because they couldn’t possibly live in a world without sports! These singles are committed to the game; but is their loyalty to their favorite team impacting their dating life for better or for worse? Plenty of Fish recently surveyed over 1,500 users to find out how someone’s love for sports, can impact their love life.
Game Time vs. Date Time: Embracing your team spirit and interest in sports is a good thing, but if it starts to seriously get in the way of your relationships, you should find ways to balance both areas of your life. Cancelling a date because your team is playing isn’t a great way to start any relationship – 11% of singles admitted having pulled this fast one because they wanted to watch a sports game on tv instead.
If your date isn’t a sports lover like yourself, or perhaps they support a rival team and you have conflicting game time schedules, it’s important to take a step back and plan out your game nights and date nights. Don’t try to combine the two unless you’re both equally keen to head to a sports bar for your date.
1/4 singles think that dating around their favorite sports team’s game schedule is difficult. In order to minimize the stress of planning around game time, it’s important to prioritize your agenda:
- Write down what games you absolutely can not miss vs. the ones you can live with just seeing the highlight reel of.
- If your team is playing all weekend, carve out time in your weeknights to spend quality time with your partner, without looking at the game scores over their shoulder.
- Be present with your partner. 30% of men in the survey admitted to keeping a sports game on in the background when they were hooking up with their date. Turn off the game and turn on the romance and be in the moment with your significant other.
8% of singles surveyed admitted that sports played a role in a breakup; with 25% saying they themselves were too preoccupied with sports; 34% saying it was because they supported rival teams, and 27% saying it was because their partner did not care about sports at all. But it’s not all bad news for sports fans.
Love Is Greater Than Sports: Even for the most die hard sports fans, 91% of singles would much rather find the love of their life than be granted lifetime season tickets to their favorite team. And the majority (52%) of singles would rather cuddle than go to a game, interestingly with men 10% more likely to choose cuddling over sports than women. 44% of singles actually said sports helped them get closer to someone they were dating because they had the shared interest in common. If you love sports and you’re looking for someone who feels the same, focus on the “Interests” section of their dating profile on Plenty of Fish to see what sports they may be interested.
Big Screen Proposal – Yay or Nay? : While 28% of singles say engagements at sporting events are tacky or embarrassing, over 1/3 of singles (39%) think they’re awesome! And women actually prefer a stadium proposal more than men, with 44% of women saying these proposals are awesome, compared to just 35% of men.
