No, the increased political activism in professional sports doesn’t explain the ratings decline. And no, the sports where that activism is the most pronounced, like the NBA, haven’t suffered more in comparison. [snip] Those were the findings of a new survey by the Marist Poll. (Disclosure: the author is a lecturer at Marist College.) A poll of 1,560 American adults, conducted in late September, suggested that a lot of the narratives surrounding the steep ratings decline in sports television are unfounded.