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California also produce the NBA players. Although NY, MI and Il can make a strong per capita case. However, they can’t both of the other two major sports.
Most in Major League Soccer, even per capita.
Hockey? Whatever. Their attendance is less than MLS.
This is despite intense competition by other sports vying for participants. The place also generates huge numbers in volleyball, golf, tennis and swimming, and routinely sends the most athletes to the Olympics, by a huge margin.
All these other sports don't prevent CA from providing the NFL with a player pool (and the NE's 8 NFL teams) at 2:1 per capita rate relative to the NE.
However, those are other subjects for other threads. Calling this thread dumb sounds like avoidance.
Where was Basketball and Volleyball Invented?
Massachusetts.
The NE outpreforms CA in the Winter Olympics. the NHL has a lower attendence figure because they play in Indoor staduims of 20-25,000, not outdoor staduims of 60,000+
Where was Basketball and Volleyball Invented?
Massachusetts.
The NE outpreforms CA in the Winter Olympics. the NHL has a lower attendence figure because they play in Indoor staduims of 20-25,000, not outdoor staduims of 60,000+
MA should take pride in having invented those sports. Thank you, BTW. But that's an entirely different subject.
The NFL is easily the most prominent sport on the American Landscape. MLB is a solid but distant second. After that, the NBA is a distant third. After that, one can argue NHL vs. MLS for #4, but demographics suggest MLS is going to start pulling away. If you’re really hanging your hats on hockey, NY and MA are the only NE states punching appreciably above their weight, and MN per capita checks the NE through the glass.
The unavoidable fact remains: not just as compared to the South, but also relative to the West, the NE grossly under-produces numbers of elite athletes in the what are far and away the two most popular sports in America. This is despite both of these sports are as much part of the NE’s sporting conscience, if not MORESEO, than in the West. Hell, there was a whole dedicated recently wherein many folks from the East Coast loudly proclaimed how relatively apathetic the West is with regards to major professional team sports. Explanations concerning rural v. urban participation, or even race, fall away when compared to CA.
This is going to hurt, but I’m not going to varnish the truth: it must blow growing up in a place where the climate comparably limits you from playing sports you obviously love so much.
It's not exactly rocket science. HS football is biggest in rural areas and in the south. In the NE if you're not in high school and you don't have a kid in hs, there's basically no reason to care about HS football. There are bigger tickets in town. Better things to do.
That's why Texas is such a huge producer of Talent, HS football is like a religion there. HS football just isn't as big of a deal in urban areas. You talked about how PA produces a lot NFL talent compared to other NE states. For the most part these kids are not coming from Philly or Pittsburgh, they're coming from the middle of the state where football is huge and it's about as rural as anywhere in America.
The bigger football is, the more money it brings it, the better likelihood that HS teams will have good work-out facilities, be willing to pay money to hire high quality coaches ext. In the northeast football just isn't as big of a deal. In Texas, practically every HS has a multimillion dollar football stadium... in the northeast, that money is more likely to go towards... idk, actually educating children. My HS football team didn't even have a true home field.
Also kids in the northeast tend to be a lot more diverse in their extracurricular activities. Football reigns supreme in rural areas, and they also play baseball and basketball and have track and field... in many cases that's about it though. In the NE kids who might have excelled at football are instead playing lacrosse, ice hockey, soccer, golf, tennis etc.
Most NFL football players came from rural areas and the south... this isn't exactly groundbreaking news.
Now as for actual NFL teams NE:8, CA:3
To be real, HS football in Texas is popular in suburban cities, small cities where there are only three or four high schools, or rural towns. Most people in Texas inner cities couldn't give two craps about HS football. Yet those inner city areas produce the most football players from the state. Funny. I hate the fact that there are multi-million dollar stadiums and facilities. Giant waste of money. Heck, I hate that ESPN and FSN televises High School Football nationally, period. I'm not going to watch it unless there is a Texas recruit playing and even then, I will lose interest pretty fast. I know that's the same for most people. They just won't admit that.
Vince Young came from inner-city Houston, and led the Longhorns to a National Championship. I am forever grateful to ol' VY. And PA is a HS football(and Basketball) hotbed. So don't disregard every state in the Northeast.
MA should take pride in having invented those sports. Thank you, BTW. But that's an entirely different subject.
The NFL is easily the most prominent sport on the American Landscape. MLB is a solid but distant second. After that, the NBA is a distant third. After that, one can argue NHL vs. MLS for #4, but demographics suggest MLS is going to start pulling away. If you’re really hanging your hats on hockey, NY and MA are the only NE states punching appreciably above their weight, and MN per capita checks the NE through the glass.
Are you insane? Why don't you try reading what I wrote earlier.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phillies2011
Also as far as NHL vs MLS attendance, the MLS absolutely does not outdraw the NHL. The MLS has a higher average attendance than the NHL... but it has a higher average attendance than the NBA as well, this is simply due to the fact that MLS teams on average play in large stadiums, whereas NBA and NHL teams play in considerably smaller arenas. If you actually compare each league ticket to ticket, it's not even close.
The MLS draws about 5.5 million fans a year. Whereas the NHL sold over 21 million tickets. Obviously the NHL has more games, but the demand is there to buy tickets for those games, a demand that doesn't exist for the MLS. The difference in popularity between the two leagues is further demonstrated in nielsen ratings where the NHL had a peak of 7.8 viewers in Game 1 of last year's Stanley Cup Finals, whereas the highest rated MLS game this past season was the MLS cup game the Galaxy won that drew less than a million viewers and was actually outdrawn by a rebroadcast of EPL game on another channel. The MLS can't even get soccer fans to watch the MLS, much less regular people. The MLS broadcast on ESPN has lower average ratings than ESPNs broadcasts of WNBA games.
If you can't handle reading that much, let me break it down to you in a few simple bullet points.
-The NHL outdraws the MLS in attendance by a factor of about 4:1, 21million+ to 5.5 million.
-The NHL's highest rated television broadcast last year surpassed 7 million.
-The MLS's highest rated television broadcast failed to break 1 million and that broadcast was it's championship game, a rating which was bested on another station which rebroadcasted an EPL game that had occurred earlier that morning.
-The NHL in hockey markets like Philadelphia, Boston, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, etc, the local NHL telecast is regularly the highest rated cable broadcast of the day, and keep in mind, Philadelphia and Boston are respectively the 4th and 5th largest media markets in the country. That's a lot of people watching the NHL.
-The MLS in comparison has team that don't even have all of their games televised in their local markets, and when they are televised they are actually regularly outdrawn by the WNBA!
Bottom line, if you think the MLS is anywhere near the NHL as the 4th most popular league in this country, you're sadly mistaken. The MLS is not even the most popular soccer league in this country, the EPL gets much higher ratings.
And as far your ridiculous talk about people in the NE not being about to play sports because of weather, and how California is dominant or whatever, you just sound ridiculous. You're misinformed and childish.
As you can see California has produced A LOT of pro sports athletes. However they also have by far the most people living there, so that makes sense.
More telling is how many athletes a state produces proportionally by population. 11.91% of Americans live in California, so you would expect them to produce 11.91% of the professional athletes in this country. In fact thought he only sport where they exceed their expected contribution is baseball where they produce 12.86% of all american born MLB players. IN EVERY OTHER SPORT THEY PRODUCE LESS THAN THEY SHOULD PROPORTIONALLY. INCLUDING THE NFL.
Much more impressive than California? My state Pennsylvania. Only 4.06% of the population lives here and yet my state has produced 8.8% of baseball players in this country more than twice the amount you would expect, and they also produced 5.57% of NBA players, also exceeding their expected output here.
So honestly give it a rest. Most of the posters from California are among the most level headed and intelligent on this board. You're giving them all a bad name with your misinformed rantings.
Vince Young came from inner-city Houston, and led the Longhorns to a National Championship. I am forever grateful to ol' VY. And PA is a HS football(and Basketball) hotbed. So don't disregard every state in the Northeast.
Absolutely not; it would be foolish to do so. The individual athletic talent coming from PA and other NE locales is undeniable. I'm only speaking of percentages, and the only reason I'm even interested in that is to seek plausible explanation.
BTW- If these statistics were reversed, we would NEVER STOP hearing about it. Ever. In my experience, the mere reference of the real world numbers induces East Coast Sport Fan into existential shock.
But again, the numbers speak for themselves, and I’m more interested in causation.
The SEC got lucky in 09 though. A freak injury gave Bama the championship.
I don't follow college football like that, but I'll give the South props on that. The SEC and Florida teams have pretty much got a monopoly on football. I remember a few years back when Maryland was good under Ralph Friedgen and they played Florida in the Orange Bowl. All of the Maryland boosters were so hyped because they were and had a better record than Florida. That game didn't turn out too well for the Terps; the final score was 51-7 or something ridiculous like that.
Those areas down South are just too talent rich. In Florida and Texas, coaches can field a top ten team without having to leave the state. That's a huge advantage.
I don't follow college football like that, but I'll give the South props on that. The SEC and Florida teams have pretty much got a monopoly on football. I remember a few years back when Maryland was good under Ralph Friedgen and they played Florida in the Orange Bowl. All of the Maryland boosters were so hyped because they were and had a better record than Florida. That game didn't turn out too well for the Terps; the final score was 51-7 or something ridiculous like that.
Those areas down South are just too talent rich. In Florida and Texas, coaches can field a top ten team without having to leave the state. That's a huge advantage.
That was after the 2001 season. I remember that game. I knew a couple Maryland fans that was happy as hell that they finally got to play in the Orange Bowl. That 2001 game was all Florida, all the time. Maryland didn't have a chance. I always told people in the DC area that the football in that area has nothing on what you will see in Houston, Miami, Dallas, NO, or Atlanta.
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