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When you guys say South, you do realize that Ocean and Monmouth Counties are South...correct?Devils game are broadcast here in Ocean County.
Lets Go Isles.
When you guys say South, you do realize that Ocean and Monmouth Counties are South...correct?
Devils game are broadcast here in Ocean County.
Lets Go Isles.
they are only south to those in bergan passiac and adjacent counties, to the rest of us monmouth is central and ocean is quite large and parts are south and the northern parts are central
they are only south to those in bergan passiac and adjacent counties, to the rest of us monmouth is central and ocean is quite large and parts are south and the northern parts are central
Does anyone else think it is wrong that that a Jersey team like the Devils have no access to fans in South Jersey?? I understand that NY stations can't broadcast in the Philly market and vice versa, but why couldn't there be a NJ Sports Network? It can cover the Devils, Nets, Rutgers, etc...
This topic fires me up. Honestly, the label "New Jersey" in the Devils isn't even fair to say. They are the North Jersey Devils. I just think the whole thing is a missed opportunity for more state pride.
yeah, i think it's really unfortunate; but as someone else mentioned, there's no way the flyers would ever allow another team to broadcast its games in the philly market. and you're right, the moniker "new jersey devils" is a bit of a misnomer in that the team doesn't even get covered throughout the entire state; it's more accurate to say that they represent the northern and central portions of the state that fall within the nyc metro area, because almost no one in the south jersey philly suburbs roots for them. even in extreme northeastern nj, there might be more rangers fans than devils fans, although the devils' fan base has slowly but steadily made inroads up there over the past 20+ years.
i'd love to see a statewide nj sports network along the lines of what you suggested, but once again, tv broadcast rights would be an issue in the sections of south jersey considered part of the philly market. a major reason why nj has historically had problems with state pride and unity is because most of the state is suburban nyc or suburban philly, so many people strongly identify with one or the other as much as, if not more than the state of nj.
as a result, there simply isn't any sense of unity or cohesiveness in jersey when it comes to rooting for sports teams. and i don't see that changing unless philly allows north jersey teams such as the devils to broadcast their games in south jersey.
incidentally, i think rutgers' sports teams would benefit tremendously under an "all-nj" sports network. besides having historically poor-to-mediocre football and men's basketball teams, the school's marketing efforts are hurt by the fact that you can't even catch the games on tv in many instances. if the entire state had access to every rutgers football and men's basketball game, it would make a huge difference in support.
The Devils reside in north Jersey. Their main fan base is Morris/Sussex/Essex/Passaic. It is 2 different markets I dont care what the Devils had to pay the Flyers. That was BS. There are very few Flyers fans in North Jersey and that team has alot more of a following than the Devils. So how many devils fans are there in South Jersey? Id say about 20.
i dunno, to me it seems that the core of the devils' (and the nets') fan base is in central jersey (middlesex/monmouth/ocean counties) - areas that are farther from nyc's influence and where people might be more likely to identify solely with new jersey rather than with nyc. up in north jersey where i spent much of my formative years, i knew way more knicks and rangers fans than nets and devils fans - and i lived 5 minutes from the meadowlands. but when i took summer classes down at rutgers back in the day (this was shortly before the devils had won their first stanley cup and way before the nets had become respectable) i met a lot more devils and nets fans than i'd ever encountered in my area. and all of these fans were from central jersey (and sometimes western jersey), not extreme northeastern nj.
but i totally agree with you that it was bogus that the devils had to pay a territorial fee to the flyers when they moved to the meadowlands. by virtue of the fact that they play just outside of manhattan and only broadcast their games within the nyc market, they're strictly an nyc-area/northern-central jersey team.
it's really unfair that the devils had to pay the flyers when they don't even get to broadcast their games in the philly/south jersey market. once the flyers demanded (and received) the territorial rights fee, they should've allowed the devils to encroach upon their market. otherwise, they should not have demanded anything but insisted that the devils stay out of their area. but they got to have their cake and eat it, too.
You made some great points. I agree!! Unfortunately, I think we are only dreaming here... Large cities control media and unless Newark were to explode in growth, NJ will remain without its own media hub.
The way I look at it, a grand experiment was conducted 30 years ago, and that experiment, by and large, has failed. The experiment was to see if you could generate fan interest in a decentralized population, and to further generate interest by this fan base with an area instead of a city, in this case, the state of New Jersey. This experiment could not have been conducted in any other area of the country, because no other area of the country is made up like New Jersey. That is to say, the town structure that comprises New Jersey today is largely anachronistic in the sense that smaller towns that in many case have no business being independent townships surround each other in close proximities. What this has to do with basing a sports franchise out of New Jersey is significant. These smaller towns, like almost any other place, identify with the metropolitan area they are situated in, or the dominant city. In the case of northern New Jersey, it is New York City, in the case of Southen New Jersey, it is Philadelphia. New Jersey's 'dominant' cities are really only satelite cities of either Philadelphia or New York. The only way New Jersey, in my opinion, could ever host a sports team with a dominant rooting interest would be if a larger town, such as New Brunswick, Edison, or Middletown ever emerged into a major city, complete with skyscrapers, a major trade center, from another homogenous suburban bedroom community. Of course, as Invertigo suggested, this is a fantasy. The only other case I can make where such an experiment was tried was in 1980, when the World Hockey Association dissolved, and four teams were absorbed into the NHL. One of these was the Hartford Whalers. Hartford is comparable city to the major NJ cities in that it is in close proximity to New York City, but is really a satelite city to NY. When the Whalers played against the Boston Bruins, and to a lesser extent, against the Rangers, the building was filled with fans of those teams. The Hartford Whalers subsequently moved to North Carolina. Likewise, this past season, the Islanders had the worst home attendance in the NHL, and Ranger fans have about a 40% representation in the building, in spite of the Islanders tradition and success. If the Islanders were to move tomorrow, to say, Saskatoon, they'd be embraced more ferverently with a fraction of the population. The same would happen to the NJ Nets if they moved to a basketball-hungry area, such as Louisville.
You made some great points. I agree!! Unfortunately, I think we are only dreaming here... Large cities control media and unless Newark were to explode in growth, NJ will remain without its own media hub.
i think you make a great point - nj doesn't have a major core city that's big enough or influential enough to be nationally recognized. because of this, most of the state will always be defined as a suburb of nyc or philly. this results in the state not having a cohesive, unified identity among its residents due to the whole "north jersey/nyc vs. south jersey/philly" dynamic.
not having a clear identity or major city within its boundaries also means that most of the rest of the country knows little about the garden state, other than the tired jokes about being "the armpit of america" or a foul-smelling industrial wasteland. as much as i detest people's ignorance about jersey, the reality is that most outsiders only know the negative stereotypes and so they fall back on what they think they know.
if newark (or paterson, jc, new brunswick, trenton, camden, etc) were regarded nationwide in the same light as, say, boston or d.c., then you wouldn't hear nearly as many jersey jokes. the state's identity would largely be defined by having such a famous, influential city within its borders and thus the negative stereotypes wouldn't be the only thing people would associate with the garden state. in fact, a lot of people might not even know about those stereotypes if there were a major city in nj. it doesn't help that all of the cities mentioned are so close to either nyc or philly - literally, they're in the shadow of two of the country's most recognizable urban areas, which contributes to nj's anonymity as a whole.
look at nyc - it's in the southeastern corner of ny state, hundreds of miles from places like albany, buffalo, syracuse, or rochester, and with a culture and economy that's completely different from those cities. yet for many outsiders, nyc defines the entire empire state. i've met people who were planning a visit to cornell university in ithaca and who expected to party in nyc that night...until i mentioned that the city is 4 hours away. but in their minds, they think "if it's in ny, it's all the same thing". the problem is, they mixed up the city of new york with the state of new york as if they're one and the same.
if ny state didn't have ny city, a lot of people might only know the state for the rural folks and grinding poverty that are prevalent in many parts of upstate.
then consider a state like utah. most of us associate that state with salt lake city, great skiing, and mormons, because those are the stereotypes. but did you know that the state is a major repository for nuclear waste (as is nevada)? both states also receive a good amount of household waste that's shipped in from other states, including new jersey and new york. they make a lot of money to dispose of other people's garbage, literally. but the average person doesn't know this because there are several existing stereotypes that are imprinted on the national consciousness.
similarly, colorado is known as a haven for clean air, beautiful mountains, great skiing, and white bread homogeneity. but there are also places like greeley that have become squalid ghettos for (mostly illegal) latino immigrants who work in the meatpacking plants. there are also several major landfills that, like utah and nevada, accept household waste from faraway states. but you don't hear most of this because of the state's overriding image.
The way I look at it, a grand experiment was conducted 30 years ago, and that experiment, by and large, has failed. The experiment was to see if you could generate fan interest in a decentralized population, and to further generate interest by this fan base with an area instead of a city, in this case, the state of New Jersey. This experiment could not have been conducted in any other area of the country, because no other area of the country is made up like New Jersey. That is to say, the town structure that comprises New Jersey today is largely anachronistic in the sense that smaller towns that in many case have no business being independent townships surround each other in close proximities. What this has to do with basing a sports franchise out of New Jersey is significant. These smaller towns, like almost any other place, identify with the metropolitan area they are situated in, or the dominant city. In the case of northern New Jersey, it is New York City, in the case of Southen New Jersey, it is Philadelphia. New Jersey's 'dominant' cities are really only satelite cities of either Philadelphia or New York. The only way New Jersey, in my opinion, could ever host a sports team with a dominant rooting interest would be if a larger town, such as New Brunswick, Edison, or Middletown ever emerged into a major city, complete with skyscrapers, a major trade center, from another homogenous suburban bedroom community. Of course, as Invertigo suggested, this is a fantasy. The only other case I can make where such an experiment was tried was in 1980, when the World Hockey Association dissolved, and four teams were absorbed into the NHL. One of these was the Hartford Whalers. Hartford is comparable city to the major NJ cities in that it is in close proximity to New York City, but is really a satelite city to NY. When the Whalers played against the Boston Bruins, and to a lesser extent, against the Rangers, the building was filled with fans of those teams. The Hartford Whalers subsequently moved to North Carolina. Likewise, this past season, the Islanders had the worst home attendance in the NHL, and Ranger fans have about a 40% representation in the building, in spite of the Islanders tradition and success. If the Islanders were to move tomorrow, to say, Saskatoon, they'd be embraced more ferverently with a fraction of the population. The same would happen to the NJ Nets if they moved to a basketball-hungry area, such as Louisville.
agreed with everything you said. that's exactly the problem with nj's cities - they're satellite cities of nyc and philly rather than core cities that define the state as a whole. it also doesn't help that our cities are, for the most part, dirty and crime-ridden slums; most people don't identify with newark or camden unless they live within those cities' borders. for instance, have you ever heard someone in montclair or short hills say they live in "the greater newark area"? of course not, because those people associate with their nice, manicured suburban towns or with nyc first and foremost.
for the nets and devils to bank on capturing the "nj sports fan" while ignoring the reality of a fractured state identity (what little identity the state has) might not have been the best decision. yes, there are some truly die-hard nets and devils fans out there - just nowhere near enough of them. besides the fact that neither team has ever been able to broadcast their games in south jersey, it didn't help that both teams were atrocious for many years or that there have never been viable mass transit options (i.e. rail) to their arena in the meadowlands. then you have to consider that the teams were never marketed properly; neither was able to take advantage of south jersey's population or nyc's population, while at the same time they arguably did a half-a$$ed job in bringing in the northern/central nj fans, many of whom already rooted for the knicks and rangers.
the nets and devils would have needed to work twice as hard as the knicks and rangers to attract fans, but to me it always seemed that their marketing efforts were always lame and uninspired (remember when the nets considered changing their name to the "swamp dragons" in the mid-90s?). it didn't help that both teams have talked about relocating at various points in their history. or that hockey is the WORST of the four major sports to have THREE(!) teams in the nyc area. if anything, baseball is the sport best suited to handle three teams in the nyc/north jersey market.
again, i have to state the obvious: many people in north jersey identify strongly with nyc, which means they root for nyc teams. conversely, the overwhelming majority of nyc and ny state residents, even in places like rockland county, would never root for a team that identifies as "new jersey"; there's a real snobbish attitude that a lot of people in nyc and ny state hold toward nj.
the devils and nets might've done better if they'd marketed themselves as nyc metro area teams (i.e. the ny nets and ny devils rather than as nj teams) AND had reliable rail access to their arena, in the hopes of bringing in fans from nyc and rockland and orange counties. otherwise, they should've insisted upon marketing their team to the entire state as "jersey's team", including those areas of south jersey in the philly market, and tried to create a sense of state pride and unity. many areas outside of the northeast play up state/regional pride, big-time, and have success at the gate because of it. but since the nets and devils didn't employ either tactic, you have two franchises that have always struggled to sell out their games.
it's truly amazing to me that the nets and devils are, for all intents and purposes, small market teams sitting smack dab in the largest market of them all. i mean, did anyone in nyc even notice that the devils won three championships in a 9-year period? the ny media kept talking about the giants' recent championship as being "the first local title since the yankees won in 2000", which conveniently overlooked the devils' stanley cup win in 2003. but that's how it goes, i guess.
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