Des Moines "Pro Sports on TV" Question (Denver: 2013, home)

[ke913ke]

There is an opening in my company at the Des Moines office and I've been doing some serious research about Des Moines for about a week and then I started wondering about something not so serious. I'm curious as to what is considered the "home team" for professional teams for the Des Moines market. For example, I currently live outside of Indianapolis and we predominately are shown Colts and Pacers games. Since Des Moines is roughly in the Minneapolis/Chicago/Kansas City triangle, whose games do you get to see on a regular basis? Thanks for your replies...

[Serious Conversation]

I'm not from the area, but after visiting a lot of area sports bars and talking to my coworkers, I'd rate it like this.

1) College athletics are relatively split between Iowa and Iowa State.

2) Baseball seems to go to St. Louis, even though they're further away than KC or Minneapolis. St. Louis has been doing well over the last few years and I guess that's why Des Moines identifies with them.

3) Pro football goes to the Bears. I've heard very few locals talk about the Chiefs or Vikings.

4) Hockey went to Blackhawks last year, with the Red Wings close behind.

5) I don't follow professional basketball well enough to care.

[Tek_Freek]

Pro football is a toss up. Quite often we go to a bar to watch the Bears because some TV programming wizard decided that a game between two teams nowhere near us is a better option. Mrs. Tek found a European website that was streaming the game two weeks ago so she watched it online. She is from Chicago so the other options near us are not very important to her.

[capitalcityguy]

Since Iowa is one of the smallest states to have two BCS level college football teams, college football rules in Iowa and Des Moines. Des Moines is close to 50/50, but University of Iowa holds a decided advantage with number of fans if you look statewide.

Pro Football is split between the Packers, Vikings, Chiefs, and Bears primarily.

MLB - Cubs, Cardinals, Twins, and Royals. A lot of Cubs fans since Des Moines is home to AAA Iowa Cubs.

NBA - all over the place, but not very popular in general. Used to be a lot of Bulls fans in the days for Michael Jordan, but NBA is not really that big. Again, college basketball is a much bigger deal here, than professional basketball. NOTE: Des Moines does have an NBA - D League team - The Iowa Energy.

NHL - Have not idea since no one really talks about it (other than amoungst other hard core NHL fans)>

As to the OP question about which ones we get to see, since the Chiefs are the only AFC team of the bunch we do get a lot of their games on the CBS affiliate. The other three battle it out for the Fox affiliate and my impression over the years is that the Vikings get the most exposure followed closely by Packers, and then finally the Bears. A lot depends on which teams are doing better any particular year.

[capitalcityguy]

Originally Posted by Emigrations

3) Pro football goes to the Bears. I've heard very few locals talk about the Chiefs or Vikings.

There are a ton of Packer fans in the area and the local sports talk radio station carries all MN Vikings games. Also, if there is little talk of Chiefs, it is only because they are down the last few years, but plenty of fans around.

I can't find a link, but the Des Moines Register did a poll several years regarding this topic as I recall it came out something like: vikings/Packers - tied for most. Chiefs third, and Bears a close 4th. None of them them was a clear favorite.

[ke913ke]

Great responses, guy. I do not know if I even have a shot at the Des Moines office, but since I am a sports nut, I wanted to know what the locals thought. If nothing else, you never know what topics might come up in a job interview. It sounds very interesting that one street in Des Moines might have fans from three different teams on the same block. On the college side, I went to Purdue in the 90's, so all the Iowa and Iowa State attention will be something I'll have to used to after awhile. Thanks for your help, guys...

[tollfree]

This is something that has always interested me. For instance, you'll encounter fans of a random team (usually Denver Broncos or Pittsburgh Steelers) for instance that are more serious fans than anyone actually from those cities. Never really understood it. Especially considering these fans have not even usually been to those cities, maybe drove thru once and are now the biggest fans of all time.

Iowa/Iowa State reminds me of left/right politics - the only goal being to argue with each other. Fans from both teams really lose focus of the overall picture.

[ElleTea]

I dont follow sports at all, but my friends that do follow a variety of football teams from all over. I don't think they automatically pick the one closest on the map. Several are Broncos fans, for instance.

[ballou3]

I just moved into the Des Moines area this summer and have an outsiders perspective on this. While I cant comment on who the locals follow, I do have a good idea about what games are shown on the TV (mainly for football as thats the season we are in).

I have basic cable which includes ESPN/ESPN2, a couple fox sports channels, BIG10 network, NBCSports.

Im a big college football fan and college football is definitely bigger here than NFL and of course its BIG10 country (legends and leaders, LOL). Of course the regional coverage sways to the BIG10. But even on my basic package, there are 4-6 games to choose from at a time, so you can get your fix of any league.

As for NFL coverage, again, I dont have NFL network or the Direct TV NFL package......Here is the order of coverage.....Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings, St Louis Rams, after that it will vary between Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and Indianapolis Colts. I've seen more Kansas City Chiefs games this year than in all my previous years combined. Luckily they have stunk it up this year so I believe their regional coverage area has shrunk as the season has progressed.

As for radio, you can get the Chiefs and Vikings coverage (not sure about Rams). They have a couple of good AM sports radio stations. AM1460 has Dan Patrick (8-11), Jim Rome (11-2), Local Coverage (2-midnight), and JT the Brick (midnight-?). AM 1700 is ESPN radio with some local coverage most of the afternoon and evening.

[capitalcityguy]

I stumbled upon this, so thought I'd still share even though the OP probably has moved on.

Here's the schedule of NFL games shown on the local Des Moines Fox affliate for 2012-2013 schedule. This gives you a good idea which midwest teams from our area are shown most often. That said, year-by-year this changes as other factors come into play such as which are on national TV (eg.....Sunday/Monday Night Football) as well as how well the team is expected to do in the upcoming season.

KDSM FOX 17 :: Sports - NFL Schedule

10 Vikings
8 Packers
6 Bears

Again, the Chiefs are an AFC team, so they are shown on the CBS affliate.