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From avid to involved to casual, two out of three New York residents consider themselves sports fans and the favorite team in the Empire state is the defending World Series champion Yankees.

A poll released Monday by the Siena College Research Institute finds that a total of 68 percent of residents statewide — 16 percent are “avid” fans, 27 percent are “involved” fans, 25 percent are “casual” fans — while 32 percent are “non-fans.”

At the same time, the cost of attending a sporting event is keeping more and more fans away from stadiums and arenas. Over 50 percent of New Yorkers attend at least one professional sports event each year, but despite 63 percent saying they “love to go,” 88 percent say costs have gotten out of control and 77 percent now prefer watching the game on TV to attending in person.

New York City-area teams are among the highest-priced tickets in all sports while the top major professional sports teams in the Upstate region — Buffalo’s Bills and Sabres — rank among the lowest, respectively, in the National Football League and National Hockey League.

Asked about their favorite team, the Yankees came out of top at 28 percent and another 10 percent described the Yanks as their second favorite. The Yankees received three times the support of their closest rival, the Mets for the single top spot and almost double the overall support when looking at each respondent’s first and second favorite team. Overall, the Yankees are named by 38 percent, the Mets by 20 percent and the New York Giants by 20 percent. Further down the list are the Bills and New York Jets at 8 percent, the Sabres at 4 percent. Also, the Boston Red Sox were at 4 percent, followed by Syracuse University and the Pittsburgh Steelers at 2 percent, and the New York Knicks and Rangers at 1 percent.

The SRI Sports Poll showed that New Yorkers are engaged in athletics as 68 percent of regularly watch or listen to sports, talk about the games with friends or read about sports in newspapers or on the Internet.

“When it comes to sports fanship, actions speak louder than words. When asked whether or not they see themselves as a sports fan, 61 percent say 'yes' and 39 percent say 'no,'" said Dr. Don Levy, SRI’s director. "But, we looked at whether or not New Yorkers watch sports or sports news on television or listened on the radio, surfed the net for sports news, read about sports or talked to friends and family about sports. We found that nearly seven out of every 10 residents walks the walk of a sports fan and for 16 percent of all New Yorkers being a sports fan is a major part of what they do each and every day.”

The SRI New York Sports Poll was conducted March 22-26, 29 by random telephone calls to 876 New York adults.

The survey can be found here.

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