Football/NFL in Massachusetts: Legitimate or Bandwagon (Boston, Harvard: home, layoffs)

[bluecountry]

I had a couple of questions about the popularity and formality of the NFL and football in Boston, MA, and New England.

To me it seems obvious the Patriots are a very popular team now, but many people are under the sterotype that Patriot fans are bandwagon.
Simply put they state a Patriot is a Red Sox fan during hot stove months, and that New England is not only predominantly baseball, but simply would sacrifice the Patriots for baseball and are very bandwagon.

I myself am mixed and do not know what to think, and wanted you unbiased insight.

Here is what I have observed.
I see many people wearing Patriots gear and they definetly get a lot of air time.
I was up in Boston during the Patriots Super Bowl and understand they have a sell out streak going way back, and currently tickets are very hard to get.
What I remember though is prior to Bob Kraft purchasing the Patriots their tickets were very easy to get.
Not only were their games blacked out, but the Patriots ranked 4th locally in popularity, below that of the NHL and NBA of all sports.
Home games were dominated by road fans.
While they haven't won the Super Bowl every year, the Patriots on the field have been a top team many times since his purchase.

1) This leads me to my question.
Is Boston, MA, and NE a legitimate top notch football town as it appears right now, OR is this phenumeue simply a case of winning and bandwagon fans where the Patriots are still well behind and the sacrifcal lamb to the Red Sox?
-If the Patriots were to become medicore would they still have a strong following or would they fall in Boston sports behind the NHL and NBA and would empty seats remain?
-In other words what is the Patriots fanbase?
The one in the 90s with empty seats, road fans, blackouts, or the following today, or a mix, and if so, which does it more closely resemble?

2) My next question is about the Patriots fanbase.
What I noticed when in Boston was the Red Sox are more popular in the city, but out in the suburbs and country, the Patriots are more popular than they are in the city if not exceeding the Red Sox.
-Is there any reason for this?
-Is it football being more popular in rural America and baseball more an urban traditional sport?

3) Further, the Patriots appear to have a stronger influence.
I originally hail from Southern CT, Trumbull in Fairfield County.
The Patriots have a lot of jerseys and thus appear to have many fans, the largest of ANY Boston team, including the Red Sox, by substanitally margins, into the Southern portion of CT even in areas that are part of the Tri State region.
-Is there any reason why the Patriots have that much of a prescene well into the NY tri state region?
-Does the fact they are called "New England" not Boston and their games air on CBS 3 and Hartford FOX, which they get in Fairfield County, make the difference?

4) Travel. The Red Sox always look as if at many road stadiums they have a lot of fans.
While New York is hardly a pushover, the Yankees lead the league in attendance, nobody can deny New York is a big baseball town, or the Yankees and the Bronx are top notch baseball fans, you still see many Red Sox fans in New York.
This leads to my next question.
Whenever I see the Pats at the Jets on TV, while the Pats have some fans in New York, they never seem to have as much I would think.
I would assume they would have hordes of fans at the Jets because not only are the Jets normally medicore and them being the number two club in the tri state region, but it doesn't make sense.
The Red Sox have many fans at Yankee Stadium, home of the Yankees who are much more popular than the Jets, a big reason for this is Yankee Stadium being a lot bigger than Fenway and New York being far and away the closest city to Boston for road trips.
The same holds true in football, Meadowlands is bigger than New England's razor AND it is also the closest.
Furthermore, the Patriots as I said have a solid following southern New England in Fairfield County, well in the tri state region a mere sixty miles from New York.
It is closer for those fans to go to a game in New York than in New England, I would have expected the stands to reflect this, which leads me to ask, why aren't football games swamped with New England fans?
Usually a strongly followed team has a lot of fans on the road especially at nearby rivals, the way the Pats seem to lack in New York leads me to wonder if they really are way behind the Red Sox and baseball.

4) Tradition. Why is it that in a region which is the oldest in the country, it took football such a long time to take root?
The Redskins moved from Boston due to a lack of fan support, and no football returned until almost 30 years later.
Boston was passed over for expansion several times in much the same big market LA has been.
This leads me to wonder, why did this happen?
-Why is it Boston did not have a longtime football team as other old east coast cities like New York and Philadelphia did?
-Can somebody explain or is it simply as it appears, football was not popular in Boston in New England, it was too baseball orientated.
-Too which I respond, then why is it hockey and basketball took a strong following?

5) Football in general. How popular is the sport of football outside of the NFL?
-Is BC and Harvard football considered a longstanding tradition and a major part of Boston sports, or has that fallen?
-What is the popularity of football in Boston and New England like at the amateur levels?
-Is this something which is like it is say in New Jersey or PA, it being the top varsity sport in high school, highly competitive among youths, and the athletes most admired at grade school levels or does it fall behind baseball, hockey, and basketball in terms of playing for youths and recruits?

Thanks.

[ogre]

Wow! You've covered a lot of territory here, but let's see what I can do.

[quote=bluecountry;1408507]I had a couple of questions about the popularity and formality of the NFL and football in Boston, MA, and New England.

To me it seems obvious the Patriots are a very popular team now, but many people are under the sterotype that Patriot fans are bandwagon.
Simply put they state a Patriot is a Red Sox fan during hot stove months, and that New England is not only predominantly baseball, but simply would sacrifice the Patriots for baseball and are very bandwagon.

I myself am mixed and do not know what to think, and wanted you unbiased insight.

Here is what I have observed.
I see many people wearing Patriots gear and they definetly get a lot of air time.
I was up in Boston during the Patriots Super Bowl and understand they have a sell out streak going way back, and currently tickets are very hard to get.
What I remember though is prior to Bob Kraft purchasing the Patriots their tickets were very easy to get.
Not only were their games blacked out, but the Patriots ranked 4th locally in popularity, below that of the NHL and NBA of all sports.
Home games were dominated by road fans.
While they haven't won the Super Bowl every year, the Patriots on the field have been a top team many times since his purchase.

1) This leads me to my question.
Is Boston, MA, and NE a legitimate top notch football town as it appears right now, OR is this phenumeue simply a case of winning and bandwagon fans where the Patriots are still well behind and the sacrifcal lamb to the Red Sox?
-If the Patriots were to become medicore would they still have a strong following or would they fall in Boston sports behind the NHL and NBA and would empty seats remain?
-In other words what is the Patriots fanbase?
The one in the 90s with empty seats, road fans, blackouts, or the following today, or a mix, and if so, which does it more closely resemble? [quote, Bluecountry]

The only time we'll really know how enduring the Patsies' current popularity will be is when they have some weak teams again. As for how easy it was to get tickets before the Kraft ownership, the Patsies had years and years of mostly mediocre teams before the current ownership, and just before the Krafts took over they were the worst team in the league, and the front office was in shambles. As for the general question of how enduring the fan base is, well, Boston is a sports town in general, and all the teams have their hardcore fans who are always there, even in the worst years. As I said above, it will take time, and some losing seasons, to see how enduring the current intense popularity of the Patsies will be, but historically the Sox have been the only team that has really been in the blood of Bostonians.

2) My next question is about the Patriots fanbase.
What I noticed when in Boston was the Red Sox are more popular in the city, but out in the suburbs and country, the Patriots are more popular than they are in the city if not exceeding the Red Sox.
-Is there any reason for this?
-Is it football being more popular in rural America and baseball more an urban traditional sport? [quote, Bluecountry]

I haven't noticed this myself, but then I've spent most of my life in suburbs that are fairly close to Boston, not the exurban areas out well away from the city. If there is more support for football in the more rural areas, it occurs to me that it might be that there's more of a traditional small-town feel in those areas, so there still might be a lot of the old small-town tradition of rooting for the local high school team, which may lead to more of a general interest in football.

3) Further, the Patriots appear to have a stronger influence.
I originally hail from Southern CT, Trumbull in Fairfield County.
The Patriots have a lot of jerseys and thus appear to have many fans, the largest of ANY Boston team, including the Red Sox, by substanitally margins, into the Southern portion of CT even in areas that are part of the Tri State region. [quote, Bluecountry]

I'm not very familiar with that area, but here are some thoughts:

-Is there any reason why the Patriots have that much of a prescene well into the NY tri state region? [quote, Bluecountry]

Maybe you'd find this all over the country. A team that wins some championships, and is the hot team at the moment, tends to get a lot of interest everywhere. Think of how often during the '90's you'd see kids decked out in Chicago Bulls paraphernalia.

-Does the fact they are called "New England" not Boston and their games air on CBS 3 and Hartford FOX, which they get in Fairfield County, make the difference? [quote, Bluecountry]

Probably not. All of Boston's teams get a following throughout New England. Again, I'd guess that any following the Patsies get in the usual turf of NY teams probably is something that's happening all over the U.S. since the Patsies are hot right now.

4) Travel. The Red Sox always look as if at many road stadiums they have a lot of fans.
Usually a strongly followed team has a lot of fans on the road especially at nearby rivals, the way the Pats seem to lack in New York leads me to wonder if they really are way behind the Red Sox and baseball. [quote, Bluecountry]

I don't know if you get quite as many visiting fans at any pro football game as you get when the Sox play on the road. For one thing, with only 16 games a season, it's harder to get tickets to a football game. I think the main reason probably has to do with the fact that, despite there being a longtime rivalry in sports between Boston and NYC, in baseball it's a much older tradition, with more of a history where the two cities' teams have faced off with championships on the line.

4) Tradition. Why is it that in a region which is the oldest in the country, it took football such a long time to take root?
The Redskins moved from Boston due to a lack of fan support, and no football returned until almost 30 years later.
Boston was passed over for expansion several times in much the same big market LA has been.
This leads me to wonder, why did this happen?
-Why is it Boston did not have a longtime football team as other old east coast cities like New York and Philadelphia did?
-Can somebody explain or is it simply as it appears, football was not popular in Boston in New England, it was too baseball orientated.
-Too which I respond, then why is it hockey and basketball took a strong following? [quote, Bluecountry]

Hard to answer this one. You could probably write a book on the subject of of sports fandom: why people become sports fans, why different sports are more popular in some regions than others, etc. I don't know enough of the history of the Redskins to know whether they left Boston because football in general wasn't popular or because the Redskins in particular never caught on. As for the following of hockey and basketball, this actually has dropped off since it's been quite a few years since either team was any good. There's still that hardcore following I mentioned above, however. Also, as good as the Patsies have been in recent years, they have a long way to go to have a championship tradition like that of the Celtics, who at one point won 11 championships in 13 years, including a stretch of eight in a row.

5) Football in general. How popular is the sport of football outside of the NFL?
-Is BC and Harvard football considered a longstanding tradition and a major part of Boston sports, or has that fallen?
-What is the popularity of football in Boston and New England like at the amateur levels?
-Is this something which is like it is say in New Jersey or PA, it being the top varsity sport in high school, highly competitive among youths, and the athletes most admired at grade school levels or does it fall behind baseball, hockey, and basketball in terms of playing for youths and recruits?

Thanks. [quote, Bluecountry]

As far as B.C. and Harvard are concerned, I think college sports in general don't get as much of a following as pro sports in Boston. Still, they will always have some interest, especially when they're winning. I remember that there was some enthusiastic following of B.C. football during Doug Flutie's senior year, the year Flutie threw The Pass, and when the team was ranked in the top ten nationally, but this level of enthusiasm lasted only for that season. There's always some interest, but hockey is really the only college sport that consistently gets much interest in Boston, which is just something about the region, which, again, is something it would probably take a whole book to analyze. As for high school, it seems that generally football would be the top sport, as is traditional across the U.S., except maybe in some schools that have especially strong programs in other sports. This isn't Texas, though. The high school football players are not the big heroes all over town that they might be in Texas, some parts of the South, some parts of the Rust Belt, etc. Same goes for youth leagues. They're there, if a kid wants to participate, but youth football (youth sports in general, except MAYBE hockey) does not get the widespread fan interest in most towns that it might in some parts of the country.

Lot of territory covered here. You had a lot of questions. Hope I've answered some of them. Take care.

[BobbyDigital85]

I think if you look at the whole country overall, people in the northeast aren't as crazy about football as say someone in Alabama. At the same time, the Northeast has easily the best baseball fans, along with say St. Louis and maybe Chicago.

I think this goes back to baseball being the urban traditional sport and football being more a game for the country. Boston being a traditonal urban center in the northeast has always been crazy about the baseball and the Sox.



Im glad you made this thread because I was thinking about stuff like this, with the football season approaching and all.

As a transplant living in Boston it seems my friends are native to the Boston area get just as excited when football season approaches. They pretty serious about Hockey if not for the fact the Bruins have been so bad same with the Celtics.

[bluecountry]

Ogre, I'll have to disagree on the point about Southern New England.
Fairfield County, New Haven County, Litchfield County are part of the New York metropolitan area.
I lived there and can say it is virtually all New York teams, the Red Sox have increased in recent years, but even during the late 90s, during losing years, the Patriots had a substantially following in Fairfield County that almost I felt equaled Giant fans and dwarfed Jet fans.
By contrast in Fairfield County you see few Red Sox, no Bruin or Celtic fans.
You don't get Red Sox, Bruin, or Celtic games but you do get Patriot games, so I wonder if them being called New England is why.

[capecodcathy]

As with any sport, if a team is successful it will attract more fans. I don't think that's limited to New England.
I've been a Patriots fan for many years, before Kraft. Prior to his purchase, you have to realize that both the Celtics and Bruins were successful teams. You couldn't get tickets for those teams at the time. The Red Sox also made a couple of runs at the World Series. The Patriots made the playoffs a couple of times but were eliminated early.
Now the Celts and Bruins are so bad tickets are easily obtained. No one wants to sit through their games!
Another thing, Fenway Park is in an urban location and easily accessible with public transportation. Foxboro is well south of Boston and not as easily accessible to people who rely on the T.

[Valerie C]

After living in the St. Louis area for 5 years or so, I have to say that I was AMAZED with the amount of fan support the area has. Throughout the playing season, whether they're in the playoffs or not, people are flying flags in their yards, their vehicles, etc for the Cardinals or the Rams... every checkout line is decorated in the grocery stores, players making appearances here and there. Very much less so for the STL Blues... I thought maybe it was just a sign of the times, but when I returned to New England, it was lukewarm support for the hometeams, as I had seen most of my years living in Massachusetts. Maybe it's different when you get closer to the city, but I lived a full 30 miles from St. Louis and still found the overall support of the home team to be a huge change from what I was used to.

Originally Posted by BobbyDigital85

I think if you look at the whole country overall, people in the northeast aren't as crazy about football as say someone in Alabama. At the same time, the Northeast has easily the best baseball fans, along with say St. Louis and maybe Chicago.

[ogre]

Originally Posted by bluecountry

Ogre, I'll have to disagree on the point about Southern New England.
Fairfield County, New Haven County, Litchfield County are part of the New York metropolitan area.
I lived there and can say it is virtually all New York teams, the Red Sox have increased in recent years, but even during the late 90s, during losing years, the Patriots had a substantially following in Fairfield County that almost I felt equaled Giant fans and dwarfed Jet fans.
By contrast in Fairfield County you see few Red Sox, no Bruin or Celtic fans.
You don't get Red Sox, Bruin, or Celtic games but you do get Patriot games, so I wonder if them being called New England is why.

It sounds as if you're familiar with southwestern CT. I'm not very familiar with the area, so I'm not in a position to know why interest in one Boston team, more than in the others, would extend into NYC's CT suburbs. I would guess that it has nothing to do with whether the team is named the "Boston" whatever versus the "New England" whatever.

Actually, the Patsies were originally called the Boston Patriots. It was only after they built their first stadium in Foxboro that they changed the name to New England Patriots. There was not particularly any reason to change the name to "New England" to try to attract fans from all over the region, since, except for southern CT, and a few areas of western MA that have a lot of transplanted New Yorkers, the Boston teams are followed all over New England anyway. It seemed that the name was changed to New England Patriots because it wasn't a good fit to call a team "Boston" somethings when they no longer actually played their home games within the city of Boston. It's sort of like the way the Angels were called the California Angels for most of their history, because they're in the Los Angeles area but don't actually play within the city of LA, or the way the Twins and Vikings are called "Minnesota" because they both originally played in a suburban stadium, not in either of the Twin Cities.

Regarding the question of why people in southern CT follow the teams they do, I'd suggest starting a thread on the CT forum. Here at the MA forum, plenty of people can give you some idea of the popularity of the Patiots and football in the Boston area, and there might be people in MA who have moved from CT and know something about who follows what teams in CT, and why, but at the CT forum you're likely to encounter a lot more people who are familiar with that area and can give some real insight into that question. Take care.