Baseball vs. Football

[zitothebrave]

The NFL has the benefit of only be played on Sunday (basically). It's a lot easier to commit yourself to 3.5 hours to watching a game if its Sunday morning and you don't have to worry about turning the game off to go to bed on time.

Yeah but if you live on the east coast and are social, it can be very hard to commit 3.5 hours instead of going elsewhere.

[thewupk]

Going back to the OP I think ratings aren't the best way to look at which sport is more popular. That being said I think it's clear NFL is king and has been for quite some time. There are a lot of factors but I think it's just mainly what our culture has become. Football being played on a weekly basis where overreaction is all too commonplace just fits in with the mentality of most Americans. Compared to the long marathon that is a baseball season.

With that being said MLB is firmly #2 with various polls out there and also is revenue. Baseball may not be #1 anymore but that's ok. It's in a great spot considering how the league was after the 94 strike. It's ciome a long ways in those 20 years.

[gilesfan]

The time commitment is huge. I can get away with saying we aren't doing anything from 1-7 for 17 Sundays a year. My wife has no issue, even with kids. Heck, most of the people I typically hange out with are the same way so nothing is planned except football.

I really can't say, "don't plan anything for us from 7-10 Monday thru Sat and 1-4 on Sunday" for the entire summer.

[Carp]

It also doesn't help that majority of NFL games are on network television, where as the vast majority of baseball games are televised on cable/satellite.

[Runnin]

Just heard someone who called into a local radio show and complained that last nights game was too long and nothing exciting happened. The talk show host who routinely complains about baseball was in total agreement. What an idiot.

If you didn't like last night's game, you don't like baseball.

[chop2chip]

Yeah but if you live on the east coast and are social, it can be very hard to commit 3.5 hours instead of going elsewhere.

Sure. But the average American is social on Friday and Saturday night. Those days aren't touched by the NFL. The vast majority of Americans stay at home on Sunday.

[zitothebrave]

Sure. But the average American is social on Friday and Saturday night. Those days aren't touched by the NFL. The vast majority of Americans stay at home on Sunday.

Perhaps. Sundays are fantastic days to venture out in my experience. Maybe the best day to hit up a brewery. Hair of the dog and all that jazz. Plus if you day drink you'll sleep through your hangover period and be ready for monday.

[cajunrevenge]

Football may be king per game but baseball still plays 10 times as many games in which to draw revenue from.


As for the "urban" problem I wish people would say what they mean. Not enough black players. Its complete bull**** in my opinion. No one is saying the NBA has white problem because the amount of white players is so low compared to their percentage of the population. The real problem is that MLB has left loop holes in the system to give big market teams an large advantage. Its a miracle teams like the Royals or Pirates even have fans after what they went through. If I grew up in those cities watching the Yankees spend 5-6 times as much as my team I wouldnt watch baseball either. If I want to watch a farm club I will go watch actual minor league games. I think baseball has the most unpredictability when it comes to players performance/health and that and a lot of incompetence by owners/gms is the reason we have any sort of parity.

[zitothebrave]

Football may be king per game but baseball still plays 10 times as many games in which to draw revenue from.


As for the "urban" problem I wish people would say what they mean. Not enough black players. Its complete bull**** in my opinion. No one is saying the NBA has white problem because the amount of white players is so low compared to their percentage of the population. The real problem is that MLB has left loop holes in the system to give big market teams an large advantage. Its a miracle teams like the Royals or Pirates even have fans after what they went through. If I grew up in those cities watching the Yankees spend 5-6 times as much as my team I wouldnt watch baseball either. If I want to watch a farm club I will go watch actual minor league games. I think baseball has the most unpredictability when it comes to players performance/health and that and a lot of incompetence by owners/gms is the reason we have any sort of parity.

I agree with you on the issue of competitive balance.

The urban initiative is about having black and American latino and white and anyone in inner cities have an opporutnity to play. The overall issue with baseball is coming close to the issue with hockey. You have to be middle class of some sort to play it. Basically to have a shot at prospect status you need to be on a travelling team, which takes money, so on so forth.

I'm a big proponent of professional teams having camps that raise kids to play the game. Similar to how things are run with Soccer in Europe. Imagine, the Eagles (and honestly you could concurrently run an academy with the Phillies) showing kids the right way to play at 10 instead of hoping they have a good coach or having to retrain them at 18. Of course there's issues with this system as well. But to me American sports should have an academy system, NCAA will fight it kicking and screaming, they already **** baseball and soccer scholarships because they don't offer full rides like Basketball and Football.

I've said it once, I'll probably say it 20 times, NCAA is the greatest obstacle to overcome for American sports.

[sturg33]

I've given up on most college football games because they are consistently 4+ hours... seriously just keep the clock running like the NFL

[goldfly]

Did Griffey or Upton need a program like this to become productive major leaguers?


did David price?