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Whenever the Super Bowl, March Madness, or SEC football is in season, I see alot of American students flocking for that. When it was the World Series, much fewer people.
This is in line with the attitude I see in Atlanta. I can tell you that in NY and New England where I have lived, this is not the case. In fact, it's the exact opposite. People in those parts of the US don't give a rat's ass about anything college.
In New England and NY, people are rabid baseball fans. Fenway is packed every night and has been for years. NY has enough fans to support two teams and the Yankees draw 3 million every year. Look at Philly. Same thing...Phillies are huge.
I grew up in NY and lived for 15 years in Massachusetts after I got married, and I never even knew that college football was a big thing until I moved to Atlanta. If you attend Boston College or another school, then maybe you care about watching that school, but otherwise it's all about the Sox, Pats, Bruins, and Celtics. College sports don't exist.
This is in line with the attitude I see in Atlanta. I can tell you that in NY and New England where I have lived, this is not the case. In fact, it's the exact opposite. People in those parts of the US don't give a rat's ass about anything college.
In New England and NY, people are rabid baseball fans. Fenway is packed every night and has been for years. NY has enough fans to support two teams and the Yankees draw 3 million every year. Look at Philly. Same thing...Phillies are huge.
I grew up in NY and lived for 15 years in Massachusetts after I got married, and I never even knew that college football was a big thing until I moved to Atlanta. If you attend Boston College or another school, then maybe you care about watching that school, but otherwise it's all about the Sox, Pats, Bruins, and Celtics. College sports don't exist.
No doubt college football dominates the landscape down here. The Pros still get a large chunk of attention but it just pales in comparison to college football. The Bulldogs will get more attention the second week in September than the Braves will even if they are in a pennant race... don't even get me started on the Hawks... a playoff team that barely gets half the arena full. The Falcons will sell out typically but that is only because they don't conflict with the Bulldogs Sat schedule. If the bulldogs played on Sun, the Falcons would have a hard time selling out..
No doubt college football dominates the landscape down here. The Pros still get a large chunk of attention but it just pales in comparison to college football. The Bulldogs will get more attention the second week in September than the Braves will even if they are in a pennant race... don't even get me started on the Hawks... a playoff team that barely gets half the arena full. The Falcons will sell out typically but that is only because they don't conflict with the Bulldogs Sat schedule. If the bulldogs played on Sun, the Falcons would have a hard time selling out..
And if I was a kid growing up in Atlanta or many parts of the south (other than FL, notice the only baseball team east of Houston and south of DC is Atlanta), I would think that baseball isn't a big thing for most people, and even that it's "despised," because that would be my universe and my experience.
It really depends on where you grow up and where you live.
I think it depends possibly on where in the country you live. In the northeast, Chicago, St. Louis and other places it's definitely not the case. In those parts of the country people fill the stands and are very passionate about baseball.
Here in Atlanta where I live now (originally from the northeast), college football is all people care about, and pro sports in general are ignored. Even though the Braves are in the thick of things almost every year, they get a yawn from many people here. Same for the Falcons. The Thrashers left town as well for lack of support and bad management.
you bring up a very good point, when we lived in the DC area no one gave a darn about anything except the Redskins (I am talking about in the 80s) yes, we all hoped for a major league baseball team (which happened after we left) but football is and always will be the game of choice in DC. In some states or reagions, like you say, it is college whatever. For someone to think, because they talk to a handful of people a sport isn't popular is rediculous. That being said, I don't think the love for baseball is as strong today as 50 years ago...but it is still pretty darn popular. If it wasn't would we see those stadiums full almost nightly and with a lot of young people as well as seniors.
That being said, I don't think the love for baseball is as strong today as 50 years ago...but it is still pretty darn popular. If it wasn't would we see those stadiums full almost nightly and with a lot of young people as well as seniors.
Hard to say, but you could be right. Much of the change is due to having ESPN, NFL Network, NHL Network, NBA Network, TNT, Speed, and on and on.
50 years ago, during baseball season, you had baseball. You could go to your local baseball stadium and watch MLB or the local minor league team, but that was it. Today, a sports fan has a lot more choice during baseball season, and you can watch many different sports on cable or satellite.
My dad grew up in Brooklyn as a Dodger fan. He never got over the Dodgers moving to LA. When the Mets arrived in NYC, he became a Mets fan, since he couldn't find it within himself to watch or root for the Yankees, plus we lived in Queens. When we wanted to watch sports, we went to Shea. I guess even 50 years ago, if you lived in Alabama where there is no baseball (before the Braves even moved to ATL), then you probably were a college football fan and maybe followed some local minor league team. Expansion has helped quite a lot in my opinion by expanding the options for fans.
Overall attendance has been tracking at about 70-75 million per year. Even with the economic downturn, attendance has been fairly steady.
One significant issue that might be making overall interest somewhat less over time though is the inability of many ballclubs to field competitive teams. The economics of baseball has resulted in somewhat of a lopsided team to team economic situtation, and fans in "hopeless" markets might be gradually losing interest in baseball.
In football, ice hockey and basketball the smaller market teams can still intermittently be pretty competitive, if managed well. In baseball it is somewhat more difficult to pull this off.
Overall attendance has been tracking at about 70-75 million per year. Even with the economic downturn, attendance has been fairly steady.
One significant issue that might be making overall interest somewhat less over time though is the inability of many ballclubs to field competitive teams. The economics of baseball has resulted in somewhat of a lopsided team to team economic situtation, and fans in "hopeless" markets might be gradually losing interest in baseball.
In football, ice hockey and basketball the smaller market teams can still intermittently be pretty competitive, if managed well. In baseball it is somewhat more difficult to pull this off.
You should have seen Pittsburghers pack PNC Park for the brief period last summer when the Pirates were either in or competing for first in their division. It was a totally alien senstation to anyone under 40.
One significant issue that might be making overall interest somewhat less over time though is the inability of many ballclubs to field competitive teams. The economics of baseball has resulted in somewhat of a lopsided team to team economic situtation, and fans in "hopeless" markets might be gradually losing interest in baseball.
That is true to some extent, but then if you look at markets like Tampa, where attendance is awful, they have managed to keep winning.
I do agree that until MLB gets the union to agree to a system like the NFL, you will always have teams like Kansas City always in "rebuilding mode" and trading away players once they reach arbitration or free agency. We need a system where these long term contracts are not guaranteed, and where some kind of salary cap is in place, otherwise where does it end?
Do teams sign guys to 20 year/$500 million deals just to lock them up, knowing they won't see any of those out years? To me, the Pujols deal was about TV revenue more than Pujols being in LA for 10 years. The impacts though go far beyond, with ticket prices and everything else related to seeing a ballgame live going through the roof. Taking a family of four to a MLB game can cost $500 in cities like Boston and NY.
Hard to say, but you could be right. Much of the change is due to having ESPN, NFL Network, NHL Network, NBA Network, TNT, Speed, and on and on.
50 years ago, during baseball season, you had baseball. You could go to your local baseball stadium and watch MLB or the local minor league team, but that was it. Today, a sports fan has a lot more choice during baseball season, and you can watch many different sports on cable or satellite.
My dad grew up in Brooklyn as a Dodger fan. He never got over the Dodgers moving to LA. When the Mets arrived in NYC, he became a Mets fan, since he couldn't find it within himself to watch or root for the Yankees, plus we lived in Queens. When we wanted to watch sports, we went to Shea. I guess even 50 years ago, if you lived in Alabama where there is no baseball (before the Braves even moved to ATL), then you probably were a college football fan and maybe followed some local minor league team. Expansion has helped quite a lot in my opinion by expanding the options for fans.
The Dodgers came to Ca the year we got married and my husband was a sports writer/editor for a small daily paper. You can imagine how excited we were and to this day we are still big Dodger fans. I know the New Yorkers hated the Omally's for moving the team. I can remember 1959 and I was pregnant with our first baby; how many times we took our free tickets and watched them play in the L.A. coliseum. We had seats around the 55th row. When we weren't at the games we never missed them on the radio, but you are right, that was the only sport and we hardly ever got them on TV...of course no one gave the a snowball's chance in Hell to win the world series and most thought the best thing they could do was dump that wild young pitcher named Sandy Koufax. Things certainly have changed and I would say, mostly for the best.
Overall attendance has been tracking at about 70-75 million per year. Even with the economic downturn, attendance has been fairly steady.
One significant issue that might be making overall interest somewhat less over time though is the inability of many ballclubs to field competitive teams. The economics of baseball has resulted in somewhat of a lopsided team to team economic situtation, and fans in "hopeless" markets might be gradually losing interest in baseball.
In football, ice hockey and basketball the smaller market teams can still intermittently be pretty competitive, if managed well. In baseball it is somewhat more difficult to pull this off.
another issue is loyalty; with the invention of so many scouts and the attitued of both players and teams, the thought of a young man starting and finishing his career with the same team is a thing of the past. Of course this is true in life as well. How many of us had fathers that retired from a company with 25,30 or even 40 years with the same corporation? How many of us or our children can say the same thing? This is one part of our society I do not think is good.
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