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Old 09-01-2015, 03:24 PM
 
Location: Milwaukee
3,450 posts, read 4,491,482 times
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NFL is by far the most popular sport, period: Harris Poll -- NFL still most popular; MLB 2nd

"In 2014, 35 percent of fans call the NFL their favorite sport, followed by Major League Baseball (14 percent), college football (11 percent), auto racing (7 percent), the NBA (6 percent), the NHL (5 percent) and college basketball (3 percent)."

So 2 of the top 3 most popular sports in America are pro football and college football; the two together make up almost half (46%) of everyone's favorite sports. Meaning you can add up every other team or individual sport that's played in America and they add up to football's popularity. Baseball is at 14%, by the way.

All this is pretty easy to look up. Go to search engine. Type "most popular sport in America" or any variation. Learn things.
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Old 09-01-2015, 03:37 PM
 
Location: Providence, RI
12,569 posts, read 21,726,252 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kpl1228 View Post
I disagree about NYC and New England being more popular baseball towns than football. Patriots, Giants and Jets dominate sports radio and overall sports discussion in the East, even now.
That being said, Sox and Yanks and Mets have huge followings, larger than most, as seen by their attendance at away games nationally. But Northeast metro areas' media really pushes the NFL storylines and controversies and personalities. (If Deflategate happened in, say, Kansas City, it would be far less of a story.).
Eh, Talk to me after Tom Brady is gone. The Patriots have been a good deal more successful than the Red Sox in recent years. Not just in terms of championships (4 vs. 3 since 2001), but in terms of successful seasons. The Patriots have only missed the playoffs twice in that span (2002 and 2008) and the team still had a winning record; whereas the Sox have been terrible in 2015, 2014, 2012, and had an epic collapse in 2011. The 2013 season (around the time this thread was created) was an aberration, and the Sox were the talk of the town that year. However, they haven't really been competitive since 2008 (when they lost to the Rays in the ALCS) and ownership has bungled a number of coach (ehem, Bobby V) and player deals (ehem, Carl Crawford, Pablo Sandoval, Hanley Ramirez, etc.). The Patriots dominate sports radio here right now because A) they won the Super Bowl in historic fashion, and B) The Tom Brady court case is ongoing while the Red Sox are a mess and about to wrap up yet another terrible season. Still, my sports radio station (98.5 the sports hub) has a baseball specific show every night and the Sox get plenty of airtime.

When both teams are kicking on all cylinders, it's still a baseball town. People here appreciate what Tom Brady and Belichick are doing right now. It's a historic run and even though it's in its twilight years, it's not over. When Brady is gone, I don't think the Patriots will sink to where they were before BB and TB12, but I think it'll be clear that this is and always will be a baseball town. The Red Sox, Fenway, and Summer are a tradition in Boston. It's hard to explain if you haven't experienced it. The games are still very well attended even though the team is miserable and not going anywhere. If the Pats strung together a few losing seasons without Tom Brady on the team, I think Gillette would be pretty empty. The Krafts, the new stadium and Patriot Place, TB12 and Bill Belichick have made the Patriots' star rise quite a bit from where it was, but a huge, huge portion of the fanbase here is new and a lot of the bandwagoners will jump ship when Brady is gone. Unless, of course, JG10 can fill his shoes.
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Old 09-01-2015, 08:27 PM
 
Location: sumter
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toxic Toast View Post
Cincinnati belongs in the conversation; but I wonder if that would be the case if the Bengals were not such a perennial dumpster fire.
The reds haven't exactly been tearing up the league here lately either, been 25 years since their last world series title.
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Old 09-01-2015, 08:31 PM
 
Location: sumter
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cheese plate View Post
You see it wrong - football is much, much more popular there (and everywhere in the country) than baseball.

Instead of "more popular," maybe "smallest gap between" or something like that should have been the title. Boston is football crazy (see: Patriots), and so is NYC. St Louis is the closest call I can think of, a smaller metro (in comparison) with a rabid MLB following and a junk NFL squad.

Just check out polls and so forth, and you'll see that the NFL is around 4 times more popular than MLB, which is closer in popularity to NHL than football.
I can agree with this, the NFL is huge.
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Old 09-01-2015, 09:52 PM
 
Location: Englewood, Near Eastside Indy
8,940 posts, read 17,160,432 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ipaper View Post
The reds haven't exactly been tearing up the league here lately either, been 25 years since their last world series title.
The "dumpster fire" that is the Bengals is not just about wins and losses. It is about Mike Brown and his relationship with Cincinnati. It runs deeper than just "well the Reds are not great either." The Reds have the first pro team thing, the opening day festivities, whereas the Bengals have Mike Brown.
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Old 09-01-2015, 10:19 PM
JJG
 
Location: Fort Worth
13,612 posts, read 22,779,326 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cheese plate View Post
You see it wrong - football is much, much more popular there (and everywhere in the country) than baseball.
Yeah... I'm gonna disagree.

The overall culture of those cities are more in tune with baseball than any other sport on all levels. I see people keep bringing up Cincinnati and I can't speak on that one. But as far as the other three cities I mentioned, they're true baseball towns.
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Old 09-02-2015, 09:44 AM
 
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Having lived in New England my entire 50 odd years, I think the local baseball team (Boston Red Sox) is more popular than the local football team (New England Patriots). The Patriots presently garner a lot of attention due to their great success in the last 15 years. Many of their fans however are primarily drawn by their success and their support is recent and more superficial. It could easily evaporate if the team was see its play decline. The Red Sox on the other hand have always been popular, whether they were winning World Series or not. Some have even suggested that winning the World Series might have hurt the Sox in some respects as its fans are not still all waiting with built up anticipation for that elusive championship.

The Red Sox are ingrained in the fabric of New England. Visiting historic Fenway Park is a pilgrimage. Sharing the Sox and Fenway memories with your father and grandfather is a treasure. Books and movies have been written about them. Winters come but each spring gloriously returns when the Red Sox play their opener at Fenway. There is an attachment to the Red Sox like no other sports team in New England. Love for the Sox is passed down from generation to generation to generation.

New Englanders didn't immediately feel the need to visit late loved ones at cemeteries when the Pats won their first Super Bowl in 2002. They did in 2004 when the Red Sox finally broke the curse after 86 years.




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Old 09-02-2015, 10:25 AM
 
1,642 posts, read 1,380,442 times
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It seems like there's definitely an age divide in New England. You can't argue with the fact according to Felger and Mazz, I'm not sure where to find the ratings, in 2013 in the middle of a Red Sox pennant race, Patriots preseason games were tripling Red Sox ratings locally. New England's number 1 sport is football even when Brady leaves.
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Old 09-02-2015, 11:26 AM
 
8,370 posts, read 4,431,423 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The_General View Post
It seems like there's definitely an age divide in New England. You can't argue with the fact according to Felger and Mazz, I'm not sure where to find the ratings, in 2013 in the middle of a Red Sox pennant race, Patriots preseason games were tripling Red Sox ratings locally. New England's number 1 sport is football even when Brady leaves.

Football plays once a week so it is not surprising their rating for a game are good. Baseball is played nearly every day. Add the local tv viewers and attendance for ALL Red Sox games and it blows away that for ALL the Pats games.
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Old 09-02-2015, 11:35 AM
 
Location: Milwaukee
3,450 posts, read 4,491,482 times
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Football is about 4 times more popular than baseball in this country. There are definitely towns with strong connections to their baseball teams, including Boston and STL and NYC and LA and so on, but even in those cities, regardless of what anyone here wishes to believe, the NFL is still king. Just look at local ratings - not even close. Or merch. Or tweets. Or any way you want to measure this. Until someone brings in actual stats that show MLB bigger than the NFL in any metro area, there's no argument here. And even if that were to happen, you would have to add in college football, the #3 sport in America. It's a very wide gap, and not even a competition in the greatest baseball cities in the US.
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