Toms River (Atlantic City, Lakewood, Long Branch: transplants, live, airports)

[Stifled]

I had a couple of questions about the regional identity and sports fanbases for the Toms River area.


1) What do you consider to be part of your region?
-Where does your region start?
-Does it include or is it a continuation of Long Branch-Atlantic City?
-Are you a part of the NY or Philly metro region?

2) Who is covered on the newspapers and on TV?
-Do they cover NY and PHI teams?

3) What are the sports loyalities like in
MLB: Yanks/Mets....Phillies?
NFL: Giants/Jets/Eagles?
NHL: Rangers/Isles...Devils..........Flyerss
NBA: Knicks/Nets/Sixers


Thanks.

[hrjersey]

Toms River is a city with close to 100K people. Our region is part of central NJ. It is neither a continuation of Long Branch or Atlantic City. It is the county seat for Ocean County. I also don't consider us truly part of either NY or Phila.

If you get cable tv you have access to both NY & Phila stations. Neither one really covers central NJ so we are sort of in a dead zone unless something really news worthy happens like someone goes crazy and shoots someone.

Our local Newspaper is the Asbury Park Press - app.com (you can check it for yourself). They cover both NY & Phila Teams. I think TR is divided. We have lots of North Jersey transplants yet there seems to be some Phila fans.

[VeradoDan]

Regarding sports, the Phillies fan base has increased since the arrival of the Lakewood BlueClaws - the Phils 'A' affiliate. A lot of people who weren't previously baseball fans or were fans of teams from other parts of the country have enjoyed watching the local players rise to the big league club. New York fans (either Mets or Yankees) do dominate the area, though with football, the Eagles tend to be very popular. It's more equal. As far as basketball, the Nets are the most popular team. Hockey is mainly Devils, with some Flyers and Rangers fans mixed in.

I'm a Mets fan, personally, but really have no connection to NY except for the fact that my father lived there 30 years ago before I was born. I usually go to the Mets games when they are away playing Philadelphia. It's a lot easier and normally much faster to drive to Philly than Queens.

As far as media, there is the APP and to a lesser extend the Press of Atlantic City. NYC and PHL television stations both "cover" the area but never venture here unless there is something very major. The last event they covered in depth was a major boating accident in Brick last summer.

[NJ~LuLu]

ITA with hrJersey, We have the best of both worlds (cities). Centrally located, 45min to hr. drive to both airports, We have eagle, jet and big giants fan base along with Yankee and Mets. Quite diverse, keeps things interesting. I prefer phildelphia channel 10 for news/weather, hubby likes NY nbc.
Personally I consider anything on the other side of the driscoll bridge City. Ahh clean air. Exit 80 here!

[Stone28]

I agree with the above posts but I would like to add that Toms River does have a lot of fans of random teams. I have friends that are Viking fans, Cowboys fans, Orlando Magic fans you name it. You don't really get the "pack mentality" that you get in NNJ or SW Jersey where just about everyone is a Die heart Philly or NY fans.