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I had a couple of questions about the regional identity and sports fanbases for Albany-Schenectady-Troy-Saratoga Springs (ASTSSMA).
1) Where does your region start?
2) Do you consider yourself's a northern extenstion/satellite of metro NYC/downstate New York or do you consider yourself's your own seperate region?
-In other words would somebody from this area have a problem being identief with NYC/downstate metro NY?
-Do you consider Albany to be your region, which is different, or do you consider it to be extenstion of Mass/VT?
3) Who is covered on the newspapers and on TV?
-Do you get just Albany papers, no Mass papers?
-Do you get Albany or even NYC/Utica TV stations or Mass/VT Stations?
4) On to sports, what are the sports loyalities like in
MLB: Yanks/Mets....sox?
NFL: Giants/Jets....pats?
NHL: Rangers/Isles...Devils..........Bruins
NBA: Celtics/Knicks/Nets
Are you pretty much, sports base wise, the same as Dutchess and downstate NY?
I would think since Albany is in NYS, closer to NYC in distance and in culture and certainly the suburbs and reaches of downstate, there would be a marginal difference at most in sports allegiances from ASTSSMA to Rockland.
Why would Boston, which is out state, and further away by distance and culture, have a big following especially if you can not get their games?
I grew up in a suburb right outside Albany and now live in Boston. The immediate Capital District considers itself a separate entity from NYC. When I meet people and say that I'm from upstate NY because it's very different than the NYC metro area. Now, some people don't realize how big NY state actually is and depending on who you're talking to "upstate" can mean anything from Buffalo (techncally W NY), Rochester, Syracuse (technically Central NY) to Plattsburgh (now that's upstate).
No one really considered themselves a part of VT or MA since the Cap Region are the main cities here. You could ask the people who live in the border areas of those states since they may identify more with NY because they get the Albany TV/radio channels (at least W MA does). The media covers the NY teams (including Buffalo, I believe).
Growing up, most people were fans of the NYC pro sports teams with maybe some Buffalo team fans thrown in. For Div I college sports, Syracuse is the more popular school as opposed to say, St. Johns. Now, I know that the MA border towns have some split loyalties between the Boston area teams and NY. Since they get the Albany tv stations, a lot of people grew up watching the NY sports teams on TV as opposed to Boston teams.
I don't remember a big Boston sports following growing up. You'll always have people who relocated from MA and have their Boston allegiance, but I don't think there is a big following these days.
Personally, my line of demarcation for where the greater Capital Region ends has always been around the Saugerties/Kingston area in the South, maybe just beyond Amsterdam to the West, MA border to the East and up past Lake George to the north.
I tell people that I'm "from albany" or "from upstate ny" to out of stater's..
Personally i see TONS of redsocks fans, and work with more sox fans then yankee fans to be honest..
Football Albany is giants country.. city is Jets country..
other sports it's all over the map..
covered in papers it's yankees mets for bballl..
Patriots, Buffalo, Jets, Giants for football..
knicks for basketball..
Hockey doesn't get much coverage around here...
We definately consider our self to NOT be part of Vt/Mass.. we consider newengland to be another region.. albany is it's own region in the mind of most people here...
sorry for the hodge podged answer.. but typing fast at work.
^ I wrote in my earlier post that I don't remember there being a significant Red Sox fan base when I was growing up, but lots of people relocate. People who either grew up in New England, lived there for a long time or maybe their parents did.
Also, the last decade has been very good to the Red Sox (and Boston sports in general). The Yankees haven't been bad, but the Sox have been better and they became baseball's darling. You'll always have bandwagon fans and some people like to have the unpopular allegiance. You could explain a surge of Red Sox fever in NY because it's a lot more fun to root for the rival when they're better than the "home" team.
I really don't understand why the Red Sox or any Boston team would have a significant much less close to a split loyalty in the Capital Region.
To me, it makes no sense whatsoever. Although Albany is different from NYC, you still are closer to NYC and are much more tied into NYC economically, politically, and culturally than you are to Boston and New England.
You get YES and SNY along with MSG....you do NOT get NESN.
Hence being the capital of New York and given the gravitational pull of NYC's economy and politics it does not make sense that Boston would have much empathy from the capital region and that this would be further 'stifled' by the fact you can't access and follow Boston media on local channels.
So considering all this....is it really safe to say this is split between the Yanks and Sox?
To me, I would think it would be:
A. MLB-60% Yanks.....25% Mets....15% Sox
B. NFL..65% Giants....20% Pats.....15% Jets
C. NHL...65% Rangers....15% Devils...10% Isles...10% Sabres
I'm just commenting what i observe.. personally i dislike both teams, i'm an oakland A's fan! and more a yankee's fan then a redsoxs fan.. as a Jet fan i know more Pats fans then Jets fans in life.. I think it's definately a HUGE bandwaggon following in the area..
Hockey there aren't many fans that i meet, i'm a pens fan myself..
Football order wise it's Giants/Pats/Jets(makes me sad)
Baseball order wise it's Yankees/Redsox/Mets (sorry!!!!)
Basketball it's ..err.. I don't know, but i don't know any Knicks fans.. lol
Count hats as you walk around malls and such.. lol..
Utica is Yankees, Giants, Rangers and Knicks, and its an hour west of Albany.
So...
and all of them have followings in the Syracuse area. So, I'm not surprised.
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