A report by consumer analyst group, Mintel, has shown that in the UK, television is the most popular way to enjoy sport, with 99 per cent of the 35 million adult supporters in Britain having watched live sport on tv at home or at a friends house in 2002.

Mintel's research indicates that football is by far the most popular spectator sport in Britain. Nearly seven out of 10 of 1,018 adults questioned listened to or watched football in 2002, more than 1.5 times that of athletics, the next best supported sport.Amongst other sports, snooker came in at number three, whilst both golf and rugby union showed "impressive" increases. Motor racing, at second place in 1999, dropped down the table to eighth, largely due - according to Mintel - to the dominance of Formula One by Ferrari and Michael Schumacher turning the casual spectator off.

Elsewhere in the report it is revealed that attendance at sporting events is dominated by men in a ratio of nearly 2.5 to 1, whilst more than twice as many men as women watch live events outside the home and listen to sport on the radio. However, nearly three in four men watch sport on tv at home, compared with just over half of women, a much closer margin.The sport with the strongest male bias in its spectator profile is shown to be cricket, where the male/female ratio is approaching three to one. The ratio for football, athletics and snooker is less than two to one, whilst tennis in the previous 12 months was watched by nearly one in four men and one in five women.

Finally, of the people questioned, 37 per cent of women had no experience at all of watching or listening to live sport in 2002, compared to 16 per cent of men. Details: www.mintel.com